Former Scotland captain John Barclay confirms next career move

The 33-year-old was released by Edinburgh in June after two years at the club, having retired from international duty last year following the 2019 World Cuo.

“After much thought and deliberation I have decided to bring down the curtain on my career and retire from the game. When you know, you know,” said Barclay to The Scotsman.

“I never wanted to get to the point where I was playing for the sake of it. Physically I could have kept going for a little while, but at nowhere near the level I wanted. The body has had enough, and the mind is ready to move on to the next step.

“The opportunity to live a dream is something that not many can honestly say they did. I can say hand on heart that I did. I leave the game with enough memories to last a lifetime.”

Subscribe for breaking rugby news, competitions and much, much more...

The Curry twins are the nephew of former England hooker John Olver and cousins of former Northampton Saints fly-half Sam Olver, who is now at Ealing Trailfinders.

Scarlets and Wales U20 centre Ioan Nicholas is the cousin of top referee Nigel Owens.

Quade Cooper and Sean Maitland are cousins and were both born in the north of New Zealand. While Cooper moved to Brisbane in his teens and became a star of the Wallabies, Maitland headed to Christchurch to join the Canterbury Crusaders before heeding his Glaswegian grandfather’s words to remember his roots and headed for Scotland.

All Black Howlett and Tonga legend Latu are also cousins, sharing family on the Pacific Island.

Gloucester speedster Thorley is Itoje’s cousin, after his grandfather re-married a Nigerian woman who is the Saracens lock’s aunt.