Mark Jones and Simon Easterby Retire
It is a sad couple of days down at Parc y Scarlets. Not only do they have to cope with the fact that one club legend has retired, but another goes and follows suit straight away. Both Mark Jones and Simon Easterby, stalwarts of the club and two of their best players in recent years, have retired.
Mark Jones
Mark Jones is famous as being the bionic man of Welsh rugby, having had his knees rebuilt. Despite a string of injury problems, which have eventually caused him to retire aged only 30, he managed to come back and be an essential part of the Welsh set up for many years – winning 47 caps and scoring 13 tries.
He had 12 years with the Scarlets, which included a testimonial year. But Mark Jones’ work with his beloved West Wales side will continue – he has been appointed skills coach for the upcoming season. All here at Welsh Rugby Blog wish him well in his new role.
Simon Easterby
Simon Easterby has also called it a day on his playing career – again because of a knee injury. Simon, 35, had already taken over part time coaching roles with the Scarlets and will be making the role full time, this time as the new defence coach replacing John Muggleton in that role.
Simon Easterby had 65 Irish caps and two British and Irish Lions caps from the 2005 Lions tour, where he replaced the injured Lawrence Dallaglio. He also played for the Scarlets in 100 games.
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