Munster's Billy Holland reveals future plans after calling time on career

MUNSTER'S long-standing second-row Billy Holland, who will retire from playing at the end of this season, has ruled out a future career in coaching.

Thirty five-year-old Holland will call it a day on his distinguished career spanning 14 seasons that saw him become Munster’s second most capped player when coming on for his 241st appearance against Cardiff Blues in the Guinness PRO14 on Friday night.

Asked about his future this week, Billy Holland said: “That’s a good question.

“I’ve a few things in the pipeline, nothing concrete. I’m not going to go into coaching. It is the most time-consuming, difficult job that I’ve seen. It’s a very tough job and I’ve a lot of respect for all coaches.

“Yes I want to, I’m not going to just walk totally away from rugby but I’m not going to be working in rugby in a professional capacity. So, look, I’m lucky. I’ve been through college, I’ve done a couple of courses and so a few things in the pipeline but nothing concrete.

"I’m just going to take a little bit of time when I finish to assess what I want to do, relax, reset and go again with whatever the future may hold.”

Asked for his favourite memories as a Munster player, Holland nominated two fixtures.

"The All-Blacks game. I was, at the time (2008), on a development contract. There was six forwards on the bench and when Denis Leamy went down injured I didn’t think I was coming on, I didn’t actually get up off the bench to warm up. Next thing I was going on. That was insane, that was an incredible experience.

"But probably the game I’m proudest of is the Glasgow Heineken Cup game two days after Axel (Anthony Foley) died in October 2016.

"I think what we did as a squad and as a club that week, how we composed ourselves and managed to go out and perform that day, against a quality Glasgow team at the time, it was incredibly impressive.

"It would have been very easy to go out with a lot of emotion and just perform for 10 minutes, but I think the manner in which we did it, even with Earlsie (Keith Earls) getting sent off, it was a testament to everything we had done under Axel.

"He had been with us for so many years through A teams and everything, I think that was something, in incredibly difficult circumstances that I’m very proud of. The atmosphere that day was just off the charts."