Nottingham Rugby club captain Matt Everard to retire

Current Nottingham Rugby club captain Matt Everard has announced that he will retire from playing professional rugby at the end of the current season.

The 27 year-old former England Under-20 international will be leaving The Bay to take up a full-time coaching role with Wasps academy, after five seasons with the Green and Whites, making 75 appearances to date, plus three successful years coaching Nottingham’s academy side.

Speaking about his decision to leave the club and retire from playing at relatively young age, Everard said:

“It was a very hard decision. I don’t think it’s ever easy for any player to stop playing and I found it very hard because of my emotional attachment to Nottingham Rugby Club...

“Obviously, you miss the sport and playing it, you miss being in the changing room on matchday but spending time with the players...I’ve always wanted to retire on my own terms, not through injury, or getting old, or not performing well.

"I’ve been captain here and it means an awful lot to me, so I can look back with consistent happy memories..."

Everard made his Nottingham debut as a 17 year-old Leicester Tigers loanee, back in February 2010, where he featured in an away tie against Munster ‘A’ and was the youngest player ever to play for the club at the time.