Rugby: Trevor Brennan last night announced his immediate retirement from rugby.
The 13-time capped 33-year-old Toulouse forward has ended one of the more remarkable careers to have bridged both the amateur and professional games by announcing his retirement ahead of schedule - he intended to quit at the end of the current campaign.
His decision comes in advance of an ERC disciplinary hearing next Friday arising from an incident in the Toulouse-Ulster Heineken European Cup match in January when Brennan entered a section of the crowd containing Ulster supporters and struck one of them.
He and his legal advisers had sought an adjournment of the hearing pending a possible civil case in France as it might prejudice his case, but the IRB, under the chairmanship of Syd Millar, requested the French Federation to suspend Brennan until March 17th, prior to the ERC hearing being set for Friday.
"I had decided at the beginning of this season that I would retire at the end of the current French Championship," Brennan said in a statement last night. "However, as a result of recent matters I've had to review that position. I had sought an adjournment of the ERC disciplinary hearing on the grounds that it interfered with my right to silence in other proceedings, but this has been refused. I am therefore announcing my immediate retirement from rugby.
"This journey started in 1982 in Barnhall and continued with Bective Rangers, St Mary's College, Leinster and Ireland before finishing with Stade Toulousain. It has been a fantastic trip. I have made great friends along the way. I hope people remember the good times, winning the AIL, the Celtic League, the interprovincial championship, the European Cup and my 13 caps with Ireland. I would like to thank everybody who has helped me throughout these years."
Brennan, from Leixlip, was one of the first players to break into the professional and provincial ranks from youths rugby, having started his career in the Barnhall underage system and then their youths team when they were still a junior club.
A hard, aggressive and popular player's player, immortalised with the moniker the Barnhall Bruiser, he began catching the attention of the Leinster management with Bective Rangers and then moved on to St Mary's, captaining them when they became the first Leinster club to win the All-Ireland League in the 1998-99 season.
Having made his debut for Ireland in South Africa in 1997 and made 22 European Cup appearances for Leinster since a barnstorming man-of-the-match debut against Toulouse in 1997, he surprisingly joined the French club in the summer of 2002.
He was obliged to pull out of Ireland's tour to New Zealand at the time to have an operation before joining Toulouse, and he never played for his country again despite arguably playing the best rugby of his career from that juncture.
Other Irish players have moved to France in the modern era but none has proved so durable, particularly with such a high-profile club. His popularity and value at Stade Toulousain was such that he became virtually an ever-present in his first four seasons, playing in 30 of their 34 matches in those campaigns.
These featured three successive European Cup finals, and Toulouse's victories in 2003 (when he led the team out in Lansdowne Road against Perpignan) and 2005 mean that, along with Geordan Murphy, he is the only Irishman to have won two European Cup medals.
He will remain in France to run his bar, De Danu, so his decision rules out any possibility of continuing his club career with Montauban, or offers to return home.
It's a shame the way it ended, but it's been one hell of an odyssey.
