Adam Jones and 5 Other Players Who Quit Test Rugby Too Soon

Welsh prop Adam Jones has been offered a route back to the national set-up despite retiring earlier this year.

Wales left the Lions star out of their Six Nations squad with Samson Lee assuming first-choice No. 3 status in the championship. But the young Scarlets prop suffered a nasty leg injury in Wales’ win over Ireland, inviting the question of whether Jones might be an option to fill the void, per BBC.co.uk.

Jones is still only 34 and was the first-choice tight head on the last Lions tour in 2013. He has played 20 times for Cardiff Blues this season and knows the international game like the back of his hand.

There is no doubt a man of his experience would still be an asset to Wales both in the Six Nations and the coming World Cup.

But he is not the first player to call an arguably premature end to his Test-playing days.

Here are five other men who might have gone on longer at the top.

Given the implosion of the England team following their 2003 Six Nations Grand Slam and World Cup triumph under the captaincy of Martin Johnson, it looked like the Leicester stalwart had timed his departure from the Test scene with Swiss precision.

He quit England in January 2004, aged 33.

Johnson carried on at club level, leading his Tigers team to the 2005 Premiership final before hanging it up in all forms of the game.

How Clive Woodward must have wished he’d have stuck around for a few more Test caps, not least as part of that year’s Lions tour to New Zealand.

Johnson learned his trade down there, and his hard edge was sorely missed as Woodward’s Lions were swatted 3-0 in the Test series.

Australian wizard Giteau featured off the bench for Australia in a World Cup final at the age of just 21, and went on to win 92 caps for the Wallabies.

But he fell from favour during the coaching reign of Robbie Deans and missed the cut for the 2011 World Cup.

Giteau promptly left his homeland to join Toulon and told the Sydney Morning Herald last November that he knew back then, at just 30 years old, it was the end of his Test career.

"Rugby had too much importance for me when I was in Australia. I felt rugby was everything … when you see the boys warm up, you do miss it. But I'm at ease with that. When I signed to come to France I knew my Wallabies career was over. I think I'll always miss it, even if I'm 70 or 80. But it's not realistic for me to even think it's an option now."

He has since been a pivotal part of Toulon’s success, winning two European crowns and the French title.

All Blacks wing Jeff Wilson quit the sport at just 28 after a staggering 44 tries in 60 caps for New Zealand.

His outrageous sporting talent was underlined by the fact that he dovetailed his career as one of the best wings in rugby with playing international cricket.

It was this sport to which he returned after quitting the oval ball game, adding two one-day international caps to his CV in 2005.

Asked in 2013 whether reported differences with All Blacks coach John Mitchell were the reason for his early departure from the sport, Wilson told the New Zealand Herald.

'No. It certainly wasn't about someone else. It was the fact rugby hadn't been the same since my father passed away and I wanted to see if I could play cricket again. I was 28 and it was a good time to do that.'

The man they called The King left his throne at the tender age of 27, after just 25 caps for Wales.

John was the architect of the 1971 Lions' series win in New Zealand and achieved celebrity status back home thereafter.

It was this level of fame he found hard to deal with, per Paul Rees’ excellent tribute in the Guardian:

When he opened a bank in north Wales for his employer – he was a sales rep for Forward Trust, a branch of Midland Bank, a woman curtsied as he approached her. "Everything had got out of control," he reflected this week. "My job was going on the road selling finance, but I would make an appointment and the whole town would turn up. I ended up staying in the office with effectively nothing to do and getting paid for that seemed wrong."

In rugby’s amateur days, John closed off the way back to the sport by taking money to write his autobiography and a newspaper column once he had quit. For a measure of just how good he was, we again turn to Rees:

There is an assumption that John would not have made any impact in the professional game. While he would have had to tailor his approach, and listen more to what his coaches were saying, such was his competitiveness he would have adapted. To look at Dan Carter is perhaps to see a modern day version of Barry John.

Skinstad varies from the other men on this list in that he reversed his decision to call it a day in the Test arena, and successfully played his way back to earn more caps.

The South African No.8 was just 21 when he was picked in place of the great Gary Teichmann for the 1999 World Cup squad.

He had had a glittering ascent to the full Springbok jersey with appearances through the age groups, but five years after earning his first Test cap, he threw it in and moved to play for Welsh region Newport Gwent Dragons.

He bizarrely quit after nine games and pursued a project to buy an English club while playing part-time for Richmond and working on Sky Sports.

In 2007 he decided to give it another go and joined the Sharks Super 14 franchise, making the squad for the 2007 World Cup, which the Boks won.

He skippered the side in a group game and made three entries off the bench during the tournament, before retiring again after the showpiece, still only 31.