LEGENDARY lock Craig Gillies said his testimonial match at Sixways on Friday night (7.30pm) will help him to draw a line under his Worcester Warriors career.
Worcester’s final pre-season clash against Exeter Chiefs has been selected to celebrate the career of the second row, who retired from professional rugby last year.
Gillies, who made a record 288 appearances for Warriors, had been preparing for a 12th year at the club after earning a new deal from head coach Richard Hill at the back end of the 2012/13 campaign.
But after Warriors’ new boss Dean Ryan set out his vision for Worcester, Gillies decided to call it a day and the 38-year-old said this match now gave him the chance to say goodbye to supporters.
“It would be nice to run out there one more time,” he said. “But to have a game put on is an honour and it gives me a chance to draw a line under my career properly because ultimately at some point I would have had a final game, which I did not really get the chance to do. I just drifted away last pre-season and it came as a bit of a shock to a number of people, so I did not get the opportunity to finish things in the right way.
“But what this does is give me that chance to draw to a close my time at the club and to just say thank you to everyone who works at the club and to the fans who have been immense throughout those 11 years.”
Tickets are still available for the match, which cost £10 for adults and £1 for juniors, and Gillies said he hoped as many people would turn out as possible as he looks to raise funds for his chosen charities Acorns Children’s Hospice and Talking2Minds.