Wednesday, 24th January 2007 at 8:36 am

You’ll get hurt playing that game…

Double blow for rugby in the Cape - and a reminder that it’s a nasty old game. Neil Fullard might not be too familiar a name; unfortunately, he won’t have a chance to change that, the 24-year-old prop (who played eight games for the Stormers last season) calling it a day after a chronic neck injury just wouldn’t get better. The type of injury that comes from having two equally large blokes attempt to push your head back down your neck every time you hit a scrum…

…but not the sort that usually affects fullbacks and centres. Unless you’re Werner Greeff, whose style of play was never terribly subtle, and who has opted out of the game at 29, with a neck that refused to stop hurting. Never a creative genius, he was a hard tackling, hard running player, best remembered for that last ditch Tri-Nations try, and the subsequent ice-cool conversion. He quits rugby to focus on his business interests, which include a Debonairs outlet in Parow (he’ll look good in a bow tie, knocking on your door margherita in hand), and to play five or six rounds of golf a week, taking more money off people like me (he’s a shark).

And he’ll lap up the time on the course - but like all players who have their farewell dictated to them, rather than the other way round, he’ll miss the game, and watching those first few Super 14 matches from the stands or the couch won’t be easy. Glamorous game, rugby? Certainly. But not terribly sentimental, as Greeff and Fullard will confirm.