Former Wales captain Ken Owens has retired from professional rugby aged 37.
The ‘Sheriff’ was the oldest ever-player to hold the role, as he played his 91st and final test as skipper in the last game of the 2023 Six Nations.
That also made him the most-capped hooker to have donned the three feathers, in addition to five Lions test caps he earned across 2017 and 2021.
He had recovered from back and neck issues to be appointed captain by returning coach Warren Gatland at the start of 2023, but those same problems have not seen him play for a year for club nor country and now it appears the writing is on the wall.
“Not playing has been challenging but the time is right to follow medical advice and hang up my boots,” Owens said on Scarlets’ website.
Owens won four Six Nations titles, including two Grand Slams, reached two World Cup semi-finals and won a Pro12 title with Scarlets in 2017.
Making his Scarlets debut in 2006, Owens struggled to break into regular first team action or earn a Wales cap behind Matthew Rees in the pecking order.
Rees missed out on the Wales World Cup squad for 2011 with a neck injury though, allowing Owens to make his debut in Wales’ campaign that reached the last four.
When Rees departed for Cardiff Blues in 2013 Owens became Scarlets’ first-choice hooker, and this also gave him a clearer run to compete for a starting spot in the Wales side – which he started to nail down in the latter part of 2016.
Prior to that he had been appointed as the Llanelli club’s captain and guided them to a Pro12 title, now known as the United Rugby Championship, in his third season as skipper.
In the 2017/18 season he once again brought the region to a domestic final, but they were beaten by Leinster who had also knocked them out of the Champions Cup at the semi-final stage.
At the same time Owens was in regular action for Wales and had earned a place on the Lions Tour in 2017. It looked as if he had made the error that had condemned the British and Irish tourists to a fifth-consecutive series defeat in New Zealand, but his offside penalty in the dying embers of the game was deemed accidental and the two sides played out a historic draw.
After breaking Rees’ record as Wales’ most capped hooker in 2019 – the same year he played a crucial role in his country’s Grand Slam charge of that year – he featured in the Lions’ next series against South Africa two years later as the visitors were beaten 2-1, scoring in the final test for one of his seven international tries.
Owens would be ruled out for the next 11 months, eventually making his return for club Carmarthen Quins where he had started his career. Though injuries continued to spoil the rest of his career he would still enjoy the honour of captaining Wales in last year’s Six Nations – though he unfortunately missed the World Cup later on in 2023.
“Had I written the script there would have been one more game for Wales, for the Scarlets and ultimately Carmarthen Athletic,” he added. “A chance to sign off and thank everyone involved.
“It was not to be. It might not be the dream ending, but my career has been more than I could have dreamt of.
“Whilst part of me wishes I could have done more, I am well aware that if you had told me as a kid I would be fortunate enough to experience what I have, to have worked with and played with the people I have and taken the pleasure I have from this amazing game, I wouldn’t have believed you.”
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