It was back in February, walking into the Twickenham Stoop players’ car park after a 47-33 win over Worcester, that James Horwill made his mind up. The grizzled lock, a veteran of 62 Tests and a former captain of Australia, turned to his wife Lauren to say it out loud.

“I think that’s me,” he stated, simply. Retirement was, in his own words, cemented in Horwill’s head.

Two months on, and just over 24 hours since announcing that this season will be his last, the 33 year-old seems relaxed and relieved. He cannot pinpoint an emotional trough during the Worcester match – “nothing really happened” – but recalls the aftermath.

“I’d put so much energy into getting back for that game after a number of back-to-back injuries,” Horwill explains. “I thought: ‘If this is how my next two years are going to go, it’s not fair on anyone’. I said to my wife that I’d get back for that game and see whether my head was still in it.”

“I feel that I’ve put a lot into rugby. That’s the way I am, and if I can’t give the effort that I believe is required, I don’t think it’s fair on the team or fair on the shirt. I don’t think it’s fair on myself, to be honest, to just go through the motions.

“My body’s been starting to creek physically. If I went on for another year I’d probably get to the stage when I wouldn’t be able to do a lot of the things that I want to do after rugby. I think I’d be in such a state that I wouldn’t be able to function normally.

“I struggle a bit as it is but I didn’t want to put my body through too much more…because it has been through a fair bit of strain over the last 14 years.”

There is no self-pity whatsoever attached to these words, which are uttered in a phlegmatic tone. Paying tribute to Horwill, Harlequins’ head of rugby Paul Gustard speaks of “a warrior in the truest sense of the word” and how the Wallaby “takes himself to the well”.

“There are very few guys I have seen who are willing to punish their body like he has,” Gustards adds. “For him to be able to walk out on his own terms is brilliant.”

Harlequins’ last-gasp defeat to Northampton on Saturday provided a stark illustration of professional rugby’s innate dangers. Nathan Earle ruptured knee ligaments. His fellow Harlequins wing Cadan Murley dislocated an elbow. Saints full-back George Furbank was knocked unconscious after challenging for a high ball.

“At the weekend we had three guys boarded off the field, which is not nice to see for anyone,” Horwill continues. “It is getting more physical and attritional.

“The impact of that is more people are having to retire early. It’s becoming a more brutal game, not that that weighed on my mind. That’s the game I signed up to and the one I have played for a long time.”

“When you play the game with a physical edge, unfortunately injuries are going to happen. That’s the reality. There has to be a happy medium between keeping rugby what it is and moving away from the game that it always has been.”

There is the crux, and the contradiction. Horwill acknowledged and accepted occupational hazards, even relished them. Collisions – carries, tackles, clear-outs – are a valuable commodity, especially for fellow tight-five forwards. Yet Horwill does fear for the younger generation.

Last September, back-to-back British and Irish Lions captain Sam Warburton bowed out of rugby at the age of 29. For many, not just the man that skippered Australia against him on the 2013 tour, it felt like a seminal moment.

“There are some great players bowing out early,” Horwill says. “Sam is probably the most public one. He’s made the decision that he doesn’t want to keep doing it because he was that sort of uncompromising player. Everything was about him putting his body on the line for the team.

“That’s what you want to do as a player and it’s what you respect as a teammate. But you have to be aware that there is life after rugby. Brad Thorn and George Smith played for 20-odd years but nobody can play forever. A career is finite.”

As far as personal highlights, helping transform Queensland Reds from “embarrassing easy-beats” to Super Rugby champions stands at the top.

Horwill played in the gruesome 92-3 thrashing at the hands of Blue Bulls in 2007 – Eddie Jones’ final game as Reds head coach, incidentally – and lasted the course. He lifted the tournament trophy following an 18-13 victory over Richie McCaw’s star-studded Crusaders at Suncorp Stadium in his home city of Brisbane.


When he left for Harlequins in 2014, then-Queensland Rugby Union CEO Jim Carmichael called Horwill a “great modern-day sporting treasure” of the state. Known almost universally as ‘Big Kev’ since his teenage years, Horwill remains immensely popular.

He plans to travel to Japan to watch the Wallabies at Rugby World Cup 2019 before undertaking a business masters degree and perhaps represent either Cambridge or Oxford in the Varsity Match. In the even shorter term, he aims to shake Harlequins out of a slump.

Despite losing their last four Premiership games, Gustard’s side are still fourth and in a manic play-off race. On Saturday, they face ominously in-form Clermont at Stade Marcel Michelin in the European Challenge Cup semi-final. Horwill hopes to shake off a tight calf to start his farewell tour in spectacular style.

“We’re certainly not going to die wondering. People are probably already writing us off, so these are the games – when nobody gives you a hope in hell but you turn someone over – that you look back on at my age and remember. We’ll be doing everything in our power to do that.”