Leinster lock Mike McCarthy has been forced to retire due to an elbow injury, scuppering his move to French club Narbonne.
McCarthy – who was capped 19 times for Ireland – was set to make the move in the summer after penning a two-year deal.
However, the severity of the elbow injury is worse than first expected and he has now been advised to retire from rugby.
“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.”
McCarthy, his wife Jess and his children had been planning for the move but the news now scuppers those plans.
“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.”
