Tony Buckley retires

Very sad to hear that Tony Buckley has decided to quit professional rugby at just 33 years of age. As a tight head I would have thought he should be peaking around now, not packing it in. Never the greatest scrummager in the world he offered a lot with ball in hand and work rate in defence.
He's going to spend next season in the 4th tier of the Irish amateur league with his hometown club.

I'm very disappointed to hear that, he was always a sight to be seen making the hard yards look easy. A guy with great potential never to be realised.
It's just a shame he couldn't have converted to the backrow, I always thought he'd make a damn good number 8.

The nicest guy you could meet and a giant of a fella.  Always had the potential tag around him and was the great TH hope for many years (whether that put too much pressure on the lad I don't know).  He would always have a moment in a game where I'd just think wow (he could stop a rolling maul on his own, he could fling players aside at the breakdown like they were skittles).  But then he would be quiet for a lot of a game and scrum time was always an experience with him.  He is too big, too tall.  If there was a proper gap and a legal hit, he would annihilate his opponent. If they could close the gap and drag the big mans shoulders down below his hips (because his opponent was always smaller there shoulders and hips would be the same level) they could twist him any which way they wanted. I thought the change in rules would see him rejuvenated as he could manage the technique better. What could have been.

Nice to see he is going back to the hometown club. There always seems to be this thing about bowing out on top.  But if you love the game there should be a natural arc where you start local, progress to the top level, but then as you can't stay at the top level over time you come back to the local club again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaex-bTi4l8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yH8m2R_zxE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQS2lNRV0NQ

Freakish beast of a man. Shame he couldn't scrummage- he was putty in the hands of an experienced loose head. But what an unbelievable physical presence he was around the pitch. He was always around 135-140 kilos through his whole career. Monster.