Nobody wants Paul O'Connell to retire. Not his coaches, not the Munster nor Ireland supporters. Not his opponents. Too visible a trophy to behead. Not the media either. Too engaging, too honest.
Decency still matters in professional sport.
Not even the man himself wants to retire. And why would he? Winning Six Nations player of the tournament wasn’t an act of tokenism. The Ireland captain remains at the zenith of his substantial powers.
He’s faced by that old pugilist conundrum. The power, the punch is always the last thing to go.
"There is a part of me that would love to have the decision made for me because then I won't be, in five years time, wondering could I have played another little bit," O'Connell tells The Irish Times.
“People say you have to go out at the top . . . it’s rare that happens.
“When you are at the top it’s so enjoyable. It’s very hard to walk away and feel good about the decision. It’s very hard to walk away and move on to whatever you are going to do next and not have any regrets.
“A lot of guys who go out at the top think ‘crikey I could have done it for a bit more’. Obviously you can’t stay there until you are falling apart. It’s trying to find the balance in that.”
Think back. His body has been tortured beyond belief. When O’Connell’s first professional rugby match of 2013 was the Heineken Cup quarter-final victory over Harlequins at The Stoop (a herculean display which secured his British and Irish Lions selection), he felt September’s World Cup was a natural conclusion.
“I thought I would be limping towards the World Cup, trying to keep my body together, and knowing that the World Cup is a natural end for me.
“Suppose being in good shape and having a good season has made me think twice about it. I am 85-90 per cent towards a decision.”
So, he arrives at a crossroads; the end or another season with Munster (and Ireland) although he stopped short of entirely ruling out joining a foreign club.
“If I am thinking about (moving abroad) it’s only because I am reading it in the papers,” said O’Connell. “The big decision is whether to stay playing after the World Cup.”
Ultimately the IRFU will decide if he can be released from the national contract that runs until June 2016. Should he seek to play one last season abroad, somewhere like say Toulon, it would be up to the union's high performance director David Nucifora to release him.
"I don't think you can play as well as you can, for Ireland anyway, when you are playing in France, " he continued at an Adidas launch this afternoon.
“You saw with Johnny (Sexton) this year. It was tough to get on a plane especially after playing at outhalf. It is a stressful place to play the game. It’s tough to have to go back and play a club game when everyone else was beginning to switch off.”
One imagines, after his wife Emily and close friends, Munster coach Anthony Foley will be next to know his decision. Then the IRFU.
O’Connell is not playing any contractual games here. He genuinely doesn’t want to announce a retirement date and then regret it. He turns 36 in October when Ireland will ideally be closing in on a World Cup semi-final.
Thereafter comes the great unknown.
Full interview in The Irish Times and irishtimes.com on Thursday.
