Rob Kearney has tweeted he will retire after the Barbarians match
Ex-Ireland international Rob Kearney has tweeted that next Saturday's match for the Barbarians versus Samoa at Twickenham will be his last game of rugby as he will retire from playing at the age of 35 following a stellar career that included 95 caps for his country, another three with the Lions and multiple club honours with Leinster.
Having signed off at Leinster when featuring in their September 2020 PRO14 final win over Ulster, Kearney signed for Western Force and played eight times for them in the two Super Rugby tournaments they participated in during 2021.
Kearney has since returned to Ireland, doing some TV rugby punditry and playing some Gaelic football for Cooley Kickhams in his native Co Louth, and he has now announced that next Saturday's fixture at Twickenham will officially bring the curtain down on his rugby career.
"It’s always been a dream to play for the @Barbarian_FC and what a historic team to play your last game of rugby with, grateful for the opportunity," he wrote on social media, drawing a line under a career in which he was first capped by Ireland on their 2007 tour to Argentina two years after making his Leinster debut as a teenager.
Kearney was named at the start of the week as one of the 24 players assembling with the Barbarians for a game where the squad will be coached by Dave Rennie, the Wallabies boss who is relying on a backbone of Australians for the fixture.
Pete Samu, Rob Leota and Nic White are just some of the Wallabies who are staying on an extra week in the UK following an Autumn Nations Series that ended in a defeat to Wales last Saturday. Springboks such as Malcolm Marx, Steven Kitshoff and Duane Vermeulen are also included in the squad for a match that will give the retiring Kearney his dream send-off.
It's an important week for the Barbarians as they seek to rebuild their reputation following last year's debacle where a selection led by ex-England skipper Chris Robshaw broke the bubble restrictions that were in place, resulting in the embarrassing cancellation of the planned match versus England.
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The first half penalties against NZ were for speculative tackling because England were attacking so flat. If NZ didn't do this then it may have been tries and not penalties conceded earlier. I believe Felix Jones is still helping with the transition online. It was quite clear he wasn't helping in person with Earls in particular shooting up and leaving huge holes. NZ had a few that nearly stuck but the two tries by Telea were defensive errors. Furbank biting on Sititi leaving Genge to mark. Genge wont show Telea the outside again. Poor tacking on Telea for the second. That said he is a hard man to grab hold of.
Isolating Genge was clever for Jordans try. NZ spotted he defended wide too often and they could leave a gap with that switch play. 6 day turnaround for Ireland now.
I imagine NZ will be better, but they will need to be a lot better.
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