Scotland prop WP Nel's retirement revealed as Edinburgh coach pays tribute and replacement search begins

Everitt hails contribution of long-serving prop, who will call time on his career at end of season

WP Nel has played 200 times for Edinburgh, won 61 caps for Scotland and appeared at three Rugby World Cups. (Photo by Ross MacDonald / SNS Group)

Edinburgh Rugby are preparing for life beyond WP Nel after conceding that the stalwart prop will be retiring at the end of the season.

Sean Everitt, the club’s head coach, had hoped Nel would play on for another year but the player has decided to call time on what has been an outstanding career for club and country.

Nel, who turns 38 next month, has been capped 61 times for Scotland and made his 200th appearance for Edinburgh in last weekend’s defeat by the Stormers in Cape Town, becoming only the third player to reach that landmark for the capital club.

Everitt paid tribute to the tighthead as he confirmed that Edinburgh were looking at prospective candidates to fill the No 3 jersey next season.

“We’ve been looking at options at tighthead because of the retirement of WP Nel,” said Everitt, who has been linked with an interest in Northampton Saints’ German-born England international prop Paul Hill. “We’ve also looked at replacements for Bill Mata who is going to be leaving us [to join Bristol Bears]. So we’ve had talks with quite a few players and we’re in negotiations with them but there’s nothing finite at this stage.”

Nel said last week that he was still unsure about when to call it a day. A neck injury forced him to miss the start of the Six Nations and he was unable to force his way into the Scotland match-day squad towards the end of the championship. Everitt said that the prop had now confirmed to him his intention to retire.

“Yes, he has,” said the coach. “He’s had a good innings and a long innings. We’d have loved for him to stay on for another year and he’s been toying with this decision for some time. He enjoys the club, he enjoys Edinburgh as a city but at the end of the day, at some stage someone will wake up in the morning and say ‘I think I’ve had enough’.

“So it looks like it could be his swan-song. That hasn’t been cast in stone but we’ve got to be proactive in how we look for our players and if there are tightheads available we’ll certainly have a chat with them because we want to have the strongest available squad next year.

“He’s not retiring with immediate effect. He’s been talking about retirement but he definitely won’t be retiring with immediate effect. I said earlier he enjoys what he’s doing and enjoying the game of rugby but he knows time is drawing near.

“He’s still getting around the field and playing as well as he was when he was 25. I’m sure he doesn’t feel that way on a Sunday but there’s never a Monday he shirks training. He trains every Monday and every Tuesday and every Thursday.”

Nel signed for Edinburgh in summer 2012 after playing in his native South Africa for Western Province and the Free State Cheetahs. He qualified to play for Scotland through residency in 2015, and made his debut for the national team against Italy in Turin that year. He was part of the Scotland side that reached the quarter-finals of the Rugby World Cup in 2015 and also played in the tournament in 2019 and 2023.