FORMER MUNSTER HOOKER Duncan Casey has announced that he will retire from professional rugby at the end of the season, aged 28.
“I’ll be retiring at the end of the season after 6 brilliant years of pro rugby,” the Grenoble player wrote on Twitter this afternoon.
“How lucky I’ve been to experience so many things I flogged myself for years to achieve but never thought I could.
“Thanks Munster & Grenoble for allowing me to have the job every boy dreams of having.”
Casey has been at French Top 14 outfit Grenoble since January 2018, signing a short-term deal there after he left his home province.
The Cork native joined as a medical joker — a player that is signed as an injury replacement — until the end of the season, but went on to extend his stay at the Stade des Alpes.
After finding first-team opportunities hard to come by towards the end, Casey ended his five-year association with Munster. He played 46 times for the southern province but fell down the pecking order towards the latter stages of his time there.
The ex-Ireland U20 made his debut against Perpignan in the Heineken Cup in December 2013 and established himself as a key player from there but his progress was stunted by a series of cruel injuries.
At Grenoble, he helped the side to promotion from the Pro D2 — France’s second tier league — to the top flight last May, and has made 20 appearances while there.
Currently second bottom of the table, they recorded a one-point win over Toulon last time out, and face Montpellier next week.
Last May, Casey was presented with the Vodafone Medal for Excellence – an award given to ‘an individual who has shown exceptional commitment to the game of rugby both on and off the field’ and nominated by their peers — at the 2018 Zurich Rugby Players Ireland Player’s Awards. He is also a law graduate, and now a politics student.
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Thanks for all your effort Duncan, the pride of Carraig na bhFear! Mumha Abu !
@Fitz Mac: absolute gent of a guy and a bloody good hooker too. Best of luck to him.
I think that’s the Palestinian flag on his Twitter. Good to see!
@Fionn Falcao: I thought we were meant to keep personal beliefs out of sport?
@Joe Vlogs: sport is personal, very personal and very political.
@Joe Vlogs: sport
@Fionn Falcao:
Could be seen as anti LGBT in current climate. They have the death penalty for being gay in Gaza and a lack of rights and persecution of gays is widespread throughout Palestine.
@Mixer: 100% bull. There is no death penalty for homosexuality in the Gaza strip. It’s illegal there but not in the West Bank. Also the ethnic cleansing of both areas is not a personal issue – It’s a humanitarian one.
@Joe Vlogs: Should political beliefs have been kept out of sport during the apartheid era in South Africa too?
What a really good guy- well done Duncan Casey
A terrific little hooker. Can remember his performances when Varley and Sherry hit injured. Though our campaign was scuppered that year. He put in a number of great performances including the game referenced above, away to perpignan. Best of luck for the future
Politics student eh? When Billy Kelleher becomes an MEP, by-election in Cork, career plan for Duncan???