{"id":556570,"date":"2026-04-29T08:26:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T08:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/556570\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T08:26:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T08:26:08","slug":"george-north-wales-great-to-retire-at-the-end-of-the-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/556570\/","title":{"rendered":"George North: Wales great to retire at the end of the season"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following year he played in the first of four World Cups, where he became the youngest try scorer in the tournament’s history at 19 years and 166 days.<\/p>\n

He would go on to become the first Welshman to play in four World Cup quarter-finals.<\/p>\n

North spent most of his international career on the wing before switching to centre under Wayne Pivac for the 2021 Six Nations, in which he claimed a fourth title.<\/p>\n

There were challenges in his illustrious career, most notably his much-publicised issues with concussions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After establishing himself at Scarlets, North joined Northampton in 2013, winning the Premiership title and the European Challenge Cup a year later.<\/p>\n

He returned to Wales in 2018 on a national dual contract with Ospreys before leaving for Provence amid financial uncertainty in Welsh rugby.<\/p>\n

His spell in France has not been helped by injury. Having suffered a ruptured Achilles in his final Wales game,<\/a> against Italy in March 2024, he did not make his Provence debut until January 2025.<\/p>\n

He has made 16 appearances for Provence, four of which have come this season.<\/p>\n

North, who is married to former world champion sprint cyclist Becky James, said he is “still working on” on the next chapter will be in his stellar career.<\/p>\n

“But I am excited to see where that journey takes me,” he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The following year he played in the first of four World Cups, where he became the youngest try…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556571,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-556570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}