One of Test rugby's smallest players calls time on career

He may only be 5’7 in height but Nate Augspurger was a collosus for the US Eagles team over his nine-year senior international career.

Augsburger announced this week that he was retiring from playing rugby, aged 35, having won 51 caps, six as captain.

The Minnesota-born scrum-half/wing made his Test debut in a 24-20 defeat to Italy in 2016 and won his 50th against Belgium in July.

He played in two matches as a replacement at RWC 2019 but by making this decision, Augspurger has ruled himself out of appearing in a second tournament in Australia in 2027.

US Eagle #491 made 78 appearances in eight seasons in MLR, for San Diego Legion and Chicago Hounds, scoring 31 tries.

“It’s been a fun ride,” Augspurger wrote on social media. “I am grateful I had the opportunity to put my heart and mind towards something I love. I received a far greater reward than I ever pictured. I will sum up my career as a testimony of faith. God led me to it and he saw me through it.”

Of all the modern players to play the game at the highest level, no pun intended, very few were stood in the American’s shadow.

Fellow RWC 2019 participants, Japan’s Fumiaki Tanaka and South Africa’s Herschel Jantjies, are both a few centimetres shorter than Augsburger, who stands on a par with Shane Williams and Peter Stringer in the height stakes, while he has a couple of inches on Ireland’s Craig Casey.