\n<\/p>\n
Launchbury came through Harlequins’ academy before moving to Wasps at the start of his career.<\/p>\n
He went on to make 170 appearances and captain the side over a 12-year period, before the club folded in 2023. <\/p>\n
After a brief spell playing in Japan for Toyota Verblitz he returned to the Prem with Harlequins.<\/p>\n
On the international stage, Launchbury made his England debut in 2012 and a year later was named England player of the year.<\/p>\n
He was part of the side that reached the World Cup final in 2019, and won the Six Nations Grand Slam in 2016.<\/p>\n
Launchbury, who is currently out with a short-term quad injury, said he would “love to stay involved in the game”.<\/p>\n
“But for now I am looking forward to what comes next, and most of all being present to watch my children grow up,” he added.<\/p>\n
Harlequins head coach Jason Gilmore said Launchbury had “consistently set the standard”.<\/p>\n
“A quality operator on the field and an even better man off it, Joe has consistently set the standard with his exceptional leadership and professionalism,” he said.<\/p>\n
“His impact for club and country in English rugby over a long period of time in such a demanding position demonstrates what a great servant he has been.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Launchbury came through Harlequins’ academy before moving to Wasps at the start of his career. He went on to make 170 appearances and captain the side over a 12-year period, before the club folded in 2023. After a brief spell playing in Japan for Toyota Verblitz he returned to the Prem with Harlequins. On the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13208,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}