{"id":33841,"date":"2026-05-06T11:51:46","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T09:51:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=33841"},"modified":"2026-05-06T11:51:46","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T09:51:46","slug":"former-wales-fullback-halfpenny-to-retire-at-end-of-season","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/former-wales-fullback-halfpenny-to-retire-at-end-of-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Wales fullback Halfpenny to retire at end of season"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Former Wales fullback Leigh Halfpenny will retire from professional rugby at the end of this season, the 37-year-old Cardiff player said on Tuesday.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Halfpenny, who retired from international rugby in 2023, made 101 appearances for Wales, scoring 801 points , making him his country\u2019s third-highest all-time scorer\u00a0 and also made four test appearances for the British and Irish Lions.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u201cIt\u2019s always going to be difficult to walk away from a game that\u2019s been part of my life for so long,\u201d Halfpenny said in a video posted on social media.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u201cBut when you know, you know and now I know the time is right for me and my family,\u201d he adds.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Halfpenny began his career at Cardiff, making 87 appearances and scoring 568 points. After spells with Toulon, Scarlets, Crusaders, and Harlequins, he returned to Cardiff last year, taking on a kicking coach role while recovering from injury.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>He played just twice for Cardiff this season, both games coming against Ulster, and the club have two regular season fixtures left in the United Rugby Championship (URC), along with any potential knockout stage matches.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":33854,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-33841","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Halfpenny retired from international rugby in 2023.","published_date":"","news_description":"Halfpenny retired from international rugby in 2023.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/33841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/33841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33842,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/33841\/revisions\/33842"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=33841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}