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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