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Wales international forced to retire with immediate effect
By Tom Webber
Wales and Ospreys prop Paul James has been forced to retire due to a shoulder problem.
James has not featured competitively since coming on as a replacement in the Ospreys' Pro14 victory over the Dragons on December 31, 2017.
The 36-year-old, capped 66 times by Wales, revealed a lack of improvement in his shoulder after two operations has forced him to switch his focus to coaching.
"I'm sad to say my time has come to an end. After two shoulder operations and a lot of rehab I'm afraid that my shoulder hasn't recovered," James wrote in a post on Twitter.
"I would just like to thank everyone who has supported me over my career and has helped me achieve everything I did, especially my wife Louise as she had to go through the highs and lows with me.
"I look back with no regrets and loved every second of it. I will miss the banter with the boys but hope to get a new buzz out of dipping my toes into coaching."
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Latest Comments
Disagree.
The challenge for the All Blacks now that they have 7 of 8 starting forwards locked in and all but one bench forward (only one loose forward and bench loosie to settle on) is to sort out the starting backline as only 9 Roigard, 12 J. Barrett, 11 Clarke and 15 Jordan had good to outstanding seasons in 2024. All the other backs were inconsistent or poor and question marks going into 2025.
Go to commentshe should not be playing 12. He should be playing 10 and team managers should stop playing players out of position to accommodate libbok.
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