Leinster and Ireland lock Mike McCarthy has spoken of his sadness and disappointment after announcing his retirement with immediate effect because of an elbow injury, scuppering his move to French side Narbonne.
In March it was announced that London-born McCarthy, capped 19 times for Ireland, had penned a two-year deal with the second-tier club after four years with Leinster.
However the severity of the elbow injury has been worse than first realised and will now retire from the game after beginning his career with Wasps in 2001.
McCarthy made 75 appearances for Leinster since joining from Connacht in 2013.
The 35-year-old had two stints out west and has also played for Newcastle Falcons and Wasps, and has amassed 19 international caps since his Test debut in 2011.
McCarthy says the circumstances surrounding the end of his playing days are a big disappointment.
"I’m a dad and you do think of moments like bringing your daughter onto the pitch for a lap, maybe even with a trophy, and that’s no longer an option..."
"It’s just sad because I’ve played my last game without really knowing it, without really being able to savour it or take it in," he told the Leinster rugby website.
"That decision has been taken away from me and it’s difficult because even random things like I’m a dad and you do think of moments like bringing your daughter onto the pitch for a lap, maybe even with a trophy, and that’s no longer an option so like I said it’s just difficult right now to get my head around."
"For 17 years I’ve been playing the game I love, running around tearing into people and having people tear into you. How do you replace that? You probably can’t but it’s trying to get my head around it all."
The collapse of the move to France is another source of regret for the towering lock, both for himself and his family.
"We’d been taking French lessons for the last six weeks, we had paid a deposit for the furniture removals, had paid a deposit on a house, we had handed in our lease here in Dublin. Everything was set"
"I was massively excited to go there. It’s a beautiful part of France to live, down by the south coast and we were all looking forward to it and I was looking forward to contributing on the field over the next two seasons," he said.
"Jess [his wife] had bought into it which is important because it has to work for us both.
"So we’d been taking French lessons for the last six weeks, we had paid a deposit for the furniture removals, had paid a deposit on a house, we had handed in our lease here in Dublin. Everything was set."
His final appearance was as a second-half substitute for Hayden Triggs in the Pro12 win over Scarlets in March and made more than 300 professional appearances throughout his career.
