{"id":473138,"date":"2026-02-11T16:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T16:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/473138\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T16:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T16:00:08","slug":"jade-konkel-harlequins-ex-scotland-forward-to-retire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/473138\/","title":{"rendered":"Jade Konkel: Harlequins’ ex-Scotland forward to retire"},"content":{"rendered":"

Harlequins Women’s captain Jade Konkel, the former Scotland forward, will end her playing career at the conclusion of the 2025-26 season.<\/p>\n

The 32-year-old – who won 74 caps for her country and played in two Rugby World Cups – joined Quins in 2018 and was made captain in 2023.<\/p>\n

The back row made history in 2016 when she became the first woman to sign a professional contract with Scottish Rugby.<\/p>\n

Konkel, who has balanced her playing career with a job as a firefighter in London, was named Women’s Player of the Season at Quins in 2022-23 and 2024-25.<\/p>\n

She made her Scotland debut as a 19-year-old against England in the 2013 Six Nations and stepped down from international duty, external<\/a> after the 2025 World Cup.<\/p>\n

“When I arrived at Harlequins in 2018, I didn’t come with a plan for how long I’d stay. I came with a love for rugby and a hope that I’d find a place where I could grow,” she said. <\/p>\n

“Very quickly, this club became my home: a place that held me through every version of myself over the years and I could never have imagined how much this club would come to mean to me.<\/p>\n

“But the season isn’t over yet. This is just my last chapter. I’m here for this season, all in, chasing standards and chasing success with this group. When it’s over, I want to know the tank is well and truly empty.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Harlequins Women’s captain Jade Konkel, the former Scotland forward, will end her playing career at the conclusion of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473139,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-473138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473138\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}