St George Illawarra hooker Dean Young admits he was shocked by Mark Gasnier's decision to quit the NRL at the end of the season, despite the star centre courting opinion from the Dragons' senior players earlier this year.

Young has played most of his career with Gasnier and revealed the 29-year-old informed him of his decision before addressing the media on Thursday afternoon, less than six months after mentioning it in Hong Kong following the Dragons' victory over Wigan in the World Club Challenge in February.

"I was a bit shocked initially, but after a couple of minutes it started to make sense," Young said on Friday.

"He spoke to a couple of us older blokes in Hong Kong after the World Club Challenge, but you don't always take things that people say seriously, but I am really happy for him."

"He rang me, Benny Creagh, Matt Cooper and Benny Hornby yesterday morning to let us know, we've played for many years with Gaz and he thought we should know first, but I am pleased that he is able to move onto the next stage of his life."

Gasnier said on Thursday he wanted to finish his career with back-to-back premierships and wanted to get news of his decision out of the way so as not to create distractions for his team-mates.

Young concedes it will be difficult for the NSW centre to keep his emotions in check towards the latter stages of the season and admits it will be personally hard to see his close friend leave the game.

"I've been playing long enough that I've had some good mates retire, others move onto other clubs it is part of the business," said Young, who is confident the team's professionalism will shine through.

"Gaz's time is up. It has been a pleasure playing with him for all this time, we have had plenty of ups and downs and he is going to be missed that is for sure.

"For Gaz and his family it is going to be a special second half of the year, but we all have a job to do.

"Origin is over and now there is no more distractions and we can focus on the next eight games with no interruptions and hopefully send Gaz out on a high."

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