The Albany Gazette - Scotland rugby great Laidlaw retires aged 37

Scrum half Laidlaw said on Instagram that he was hanging up his boots following the end of the club season in Japan, where he has played since 2020.

Laidlaw, who retired from internationals after the 2019 World Cup, plans to move into coaching but will stay in Japan "a while longer".

"Throughout my playing career I have pushed myself, I have taken on new experiences, continuously learnt and immersed myself in different cultures," he wrote.

"I have always enjoyed figuring out how to work as a team and how to get the best out of my team-mates, things I will take with me and continue to develop."

Laidlaw won 76 caps for Scotland, 39 of them as captain.

He finished as Scotland's second-highest points scorer of all time with 714, trailing only Chris Paterson's 809.

Laidlaw, the nephew of former Scotland scrum half Roy Laidlaw, played in two World Cups and was a member of the British and Irish Lions squad that toured New Zealand in 2017.

He captained the Scotland side that bowed out of the 2015 World Cup in controversial circumstances when South African referee Craig Joubert awarded Australia a late penalty in a 35-34 defeat for the Scots at Twickenham.

Laidlaw began his club career with Edinburgh before going on to play for Gloucester and Clermont, before ending his career in Japan with Urayasu D-Rocks.

"We intend to stay as a family in Japan a while longer but it is here I will finally hang up my playing boots," he wrote.

"It is time to take everything I have learnt, from a playing career I could only have dreamt of, and move on into coaching."

(F.Schuster--BBZ)