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Blair Connor has retired with immediate effect at the age of 31

By Online Editors
(Photo by Thibaud/AFP via Getty Images)

Australian Blair Connor has retired from playing with immediate effect at the age of 31 despite having another year to go on his contract in the Top 14 at Bordeaux, the club he first joined in 2010 after two Super Rugby campaigns with the Reds.

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Spending ten years at the same European club is unusual for a player hailing from the southern hemisphere as they tend to move around for different experiences.

However, the winger found his home from home in Bordeaux, playing on 219 occasions before deciding to knock playing on the head due to the toll it was taking on his body. 

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Explaining his decision to retire, Connor told the Bordeaux club website: “Now is the time to announce my retirement from rugby, effective immediately. It was a decision I made before the start of the 2019/20 season. 

“Since the end of the 2018/19 season I started to feel pain every day, especially when I sprint or change direction, so it became difficult to find pleasure during training. Unfortunately for me, it was no longer the 1960s when the warm-up was a cigarette and the workout was 10 beers at the pub! 

“Nowadays training is actually more intense than matches and more important for victory. I decided that I could give 100 per cent for this season but I have nothing left to give next season. Despite the break for the virus, my body remains unchanged and so does my decision. 

“It’s not a sad moment, rather a moment of happiness, I had a great career and I went as far as possible but now… the time has come for surfing. I don’t want to talk too much about it here, I’ll keep my words for the first game of the 20/21 season when I return to the stadium to say thank you and goodbye.”

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Club president Laurent Marti added: “It’s with great emotion that we see Blair stop his career. Blair put me in the know last July when the season started. 

“He explained to me that despite the year of his contract that he had to do, he no longer felt his body able to start again for the 20/21 season. It was a shock and we thought it would certainly be possible to get him to change his mind.

“We had suggested to him to take more time and wait until December to really make his decision. But nothing has changed, and even the premature end of our fantastic season has not made him go back on what he had decided… he is the icon of this club, a player that all the supporters admired and loved.”

 

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Jon 8 hours ago
Jake White: Are modern rugby players actually better?

This is the problem with conservative mindsets and phycology, and homogenous sports, everybody wants to be the same, use the i-win template. Athlete wise everyone has to have muscles and work at the gym to make themselves more likely to hold on that one tackle. Do those players even wonder if they are now more likely to be tackled by that player as a result of there “work”? Really though, too many questions, Jake. Is it better Jake? Yes, because you still have that rugby of ole that you talk about. Is it at the highest International level anymore? No, but you go to your club or checkout your representative side and still engage with that ‘beautiful game’. Could you also have a bit of that at the top if coaches encouraged there team to play and incentivized players like Damian McKenzie and Ange Capuozzo? Of course we could. Sadly Rugby doesn’t, or didn’t, really know what direction to go when professionalism came. Things like the state of northern pitches didn’t help. Over the last two or three decades I feel like I’ve been fortunate to have all that Jake wants. There was International quality Super Rugby to adore, then the next level below I could watch club mates, pulling 9 to 5s, take on the countries best in representative rugby. Rugby played with flair and not too much riding on the consequences. It was beautiful. That largely still exists today, but with the world of rugby not quite getting things right, the picture is now being painted in NZ that that level of rugby is not required in the “pathway” to Super Rugby or All Black rugby. You might wonder if NZR is right and the pathway shouldn’t include the ‘amateur’, but let me tell you, even though the NPC might be made up of people still having to pull 9-5s, we know these people still have dreams to get out of that, and aren’t likely to give them. They will be lost. That will put a real strain on the concept of whether “visceral thrill, derring-do and joyful abandon” type rugby will remain under the professional level here in NZ. I think at some point that can be eroded as well. If only wanting the best athlete’s at the top level wasn’t enough to lose that, shutting off the next group, or level, or rugby players from easy access to express and showcase themselves certainly will. That all comes back around to the same question of professionalism in rugby and whether it got things right, and rugby is better now. Maybe the answer is turning into a “no”?

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john 10 hours ago
Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?

But here in Australia we were told Penney was another gun kiwi coach, for the Tahs…….and yet again it turned out the kiwi coach was completely useless. Another con job on Australian rugby. As was Robbie Deans, as was Dave Rennie. Both coaches dumped from NZ and promoted to Australia as our saviour. And the Tahs lap them up knowing they are second rate and knowing that under pressure when their short comings are exposed in Australia as well, that they will fall in below the largest most powerful province and choose second rate Tah players to save their jobs. As they do and exactly as Joe Schmidt will do. Gauranteed. Schmidt was dumped by NZ too. That’s why he went overseas. That why kiwi coaches take jobs in Australia, to try and prove they are not as bad as NZ thought they were. Then when they get found out they try and ingratiate themselves to NZ again by dragging Australian teams down with ridiculous selections and game plans. NZ rugby’s biggest problem is that it can’t yet transition from MCaw Cheatism. They just don’t know how to try and win on your merits. It is still always a contest to see how much cheating you can get away with. Without a cheating genius like McCaw, they are struggling. This I think is why my wise old mate in NZ thinks Robertson will struggle. The Crusaders are the nursery of McCaw Cheatism. Sean Fitzpatrick was probably the father of it. Robertson doesn’t know anything else but other countries have worked it out.

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