{"id":849655,"date":"2026-03-25T16:14:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T16:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/849655\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T16:14:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T16:14:15","slug":"liam-williams-former-wales-and-british-and-irish-lions-full-back-retires-from-rugby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/849655\/","title":{"rendered":"Liam Williams: Former Wales and British and Irish Lions full-back retires from rugby"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Williams, nicknamed &#8216;Sanjay&#8217;, played amateur rugby while working as a scaffolder in the Port Talbot steelworks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He started his professional career with Scarlets &#8211; who he represented across two  spells &#8211; and went on to have stints with Saracens, Cardiff, Japanese side Kubota Spears and Newcastle Red Bulls.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In a video posted on social media, the Swansea-born player said: &#8220;I&#8217;ve been a professional for 15 years, that takes its toll. I think it&#8217;s the right time for me to call it a day.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I always thought I would go out on my own terms. Having knee trouble for the past few years has taken its toll.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Williams &#8211; who paid tribute to coaches including Warren Gatland, Neil Jenkins and Nigel Davies &#8211; signed off with the message: &#8220;Lastly I&#8217;d like to thank all of the fans out there who supported me on the way. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;My journey&#8217;s ended but a new chapter is about to begin.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Williams, nicknamed &#8216;Sanjay&#8217;, played amateur rugby while working as a scaffolder in the Port Talbot steelworks. He started&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":849656,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5010],"tags":[748,4884,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-849655","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wales","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116290709197983572","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=849655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/849656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=849655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=849655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=849655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}