Rugby/European Cup quarter-finals: John O'Sullivan salutes Victor Costello who will shortly call time on a great career without any regrets.

It was a decision taken in January, road-tested on friends and with the approbation of his family, mum Marie and sister Suzanne, finally announced to the rugby public at large that Victor Costello would be retiring from professional rugby at the end of the season.

There won't be any dewy-eyed nostalgia at Lansdowne Road tomorrow when he gathers up his gear, win or lose, and bangs the dressingroom door for a final time. He'll be hoping that Leinster will be decamping to a semi-final having vanquished the Leicester Tigers; desperately wanting his playing career to culminate in Edinburgh in May with a Heineken European Cup title.

If that doesn't materialise, if the Boy's Own storyboard does not end with that particular flourish, then he's not going to beat himself up about his decision to retire. He had to step outside the rugby cocoon that had enveloped him all his adult life and dispassionately decide what was best for him.

The easy option would have been to tag along for another year, his qualities as a player relatively untarnished despite his 34 years.

"I've no regrets and that's why I'm finishing. If I went on I might suddenly discover a few," he says.

"I've met great people, played with and against many great players. I've had many, many laughs. I've had tears. I've had just about everything through my career on and off pitch. I have too much respect for Leinster to ever let the team and my team-mates down.

"I want to move on with my life and don't think that I could have devoted the same amount of time and energy to playing for another season. I'm proud of the fact that I have taken the harder decision to stop. Friends are telling me that I'll be missed, which says to me that it's the right time to bow out.

"If when I informed them of my plans, they had said 'yeh, you're probably right,' then I would have been playing too long; it would already be too late.

"I'm really looking forward to finishing rugby and it's not because I'm sick of it, it's because I want to close that box. I'm not finished yet, I've four months to go and I'm down in Leinster enjoying every minute of it.

"And when I say I'm looking forward to retiring, I want to close the box and then be able to look back with my memories and reputation intact. I want to be able to drop in to the Leinster scene next year and have the guys think that 'Hey, Victor was a great Leinster man in his day. He was good fun to be around and we miss him'.

"I have so much to do outside rugby. I'll miss it but I'll be busy in other ways."

Costello went from a schoolboy rugby colossus to 39 Ireland caps, via competing in the shot-put for Ireland at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, a career path that encountered the occasional pothole. The measure of the man is the way in which he recovered from those setbacks.

He smiled: "I listened and reinvented aspects of my game to make me a better player. There were plenty of people willing to say that I was an excellent ball carrier but the sentence generally finished with a 'but'.

"Matt (Williams, the former Leinster coach) just dwelt on the best ball-carrying forward bit. He helped me and I like to think, me him. I like to thing I have had respect for every coach. Matt, Eddie (O'Sullivan) and Decie (Declan Kidney); I like to think I paid attention to what they demanded from me."

When asked about stand-out memories Costello singles out Ireland's most recent victory over Australia at Lansdowne Road. "It was special because I had just come back (to the national side) and was playing out of position (at blindside flanker).

"I remember hitting (Toutai) Kefu off the back of a scrum. I pride myself on my defence off scrums, tight in. I hit him and put him down three yards behind the scrum. I don't like that happening to me so I'm sure he didn't like it happening to him."

He recalls the days when rugby was theoretically amateur and All-Ireland League trips that culminated in train journeys home, complete with a few cans and the prospect of a nightclub. He is adamant there are no regrets.

"Since I was 15 years of age I have had a gear bag on my back, be it athletics or rugby. There's always been a team, always been a squad, always been a coach, always been a manager, always been a venue internationally or nationally. In June I can go, 'that's terrible' or I can say 'that was great but look what's ahead'. That's what I am looking forward to now."

His plans are suitably vague. He has a few ideas, one of which involves heading to Florida next August for three or four weeks to take an intensive course of flying lessons - he's working towards a pilot's licence - when his former team-mates head for pre-season. His passion for cars could see him try and restore some old bangers but he's loath to go into detail.

He is hoping to catch some U2 concerts in the USA and there are one or two other projects in the pipeline. For now, though, it's about Leinster and beating the Leicester Tigers.

There is added poignancy to matches which edge a player closer to a finite curtain call. Costello's late father, Paddy, may have missed out on many of his son's finer moments on the pitch but there's no doubt he would have been proud.

Tomorrow Leinster supporters have the opportunity to salute Victor Costello as a player, or more appropriately, as a distinguished servant of Leinster rugby whether he starts this week or, as seems more likely, is sprung from the bench. He deserves that and more.