Jamie Heaslip can cherish a glorious career

It may have escaped many people’s notice that, as word emerged yesterday of Jamie Heaslip’s decision to retire from the game he had graced at the highest level for a decade, the Scarlets were announcing the end of another rugby career.

The retirement due to a knee injury of 23-year-old back row Jack Condy only emphasised the good fortune that Heaslip, at 34, was almost simultaneously expressing about the longevity he, as Leinster, Ireland and Lions No 8, had enjoyed during an illustrious career at the coalface of European and Test rugby and his ability to call it quits on something very close to his own terms.

Condy, like so many who enter the professional game with high hopes and boundless ambition, had no such fortune and will this morning wake up to the rest of his life as a former athlete, his promising career cut short after just 19 appearances for Scarlets, whom he had captained during the recent Anglo-Welsh Cup campaign.