The Welsh rugby servant who put himself out there when everything was crumbling

Ever since his retirement from the game was confirmed on Monday evening, Josh Turnbull's phone has been, as he puts it, "manic".

Touching messages from colleagues past and present have flooded in for one of Welsh rugby's finest servants. After a 17-year career that featured more than 330 senior appearances for the Scarlets and Cardiff, caps for Wales at every level from under-18s to senior and a Challenge Cup title with Cardiff in 2018, few have given more to the Welsh game than the versatile back-row.

"I'd like to think I was pretty diligent, consistent, durable," he tells WalesOnline. "I'd like to think I gave everything on the field, to the point where the gas tank is finally empty now.

"I've loved every minute of it. All I ever wanted to do was become a professional rugby player and play for as long as I could. I always told myself I could play until I was close to 40. I'm a couple of years off that."

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He admits that milestones, like rising up the highest appearance list in the United Rugby Championship, have kept him going. Only Connacht's John Muldoon made more appearances in the tournament - and it's previous guises - than Turnbull.

It was after one recent milestone - his 200th game for Cardiff against Leinster - when he knew that his race was run.

"I don't know if it's actually hit me yet, but I think I knew after I played my 200th game against Leinster," he adds. "I had a feeling then I was done. I went away and had a discussion with my wife, saying I think I'm done.

"I couldn't really train the next week, as I'd had a bang to my knee. I did some running the following Monday and then Jockey (Cardiff coach Matt Sherratt) asked the physio if I could train on Tuesday. I said I could do it and he said not to do any of the contact stuff, just the rugby.

"Genuinely, on the Wednesday, I felt like I'd played a game. Maybe it's because I hadn't trained the week before. When you get in the rhythm of it, you don't really notice the bumps. But I was feeling it that Wednesday. I thought 'Jeez, maybe my body is telling me something'. I went and had the discussion and it probably worked out for the best.

"I tapped Jockey up on the Thursday and asked if it was possible to have a conversation sometime the following week. He may have been aware it was coming. Then, on Friday night, I had a phone call from Richie Pugh, who's in charge of Wales under-18s, saying there was an opportunity to go out to the Six Nations in Italy with them."

That saw his announcement delayed a touch. Eventually, he told Sherratt his intentions the following week, while his team-mates were told this week, hours before the news was announced.

In the meantime, he spent his time with Wales under-18s, the latest step towards his new life after playing - coaching. It's something he's been building towards for over a decade.

"When I asked Jockey about the opportunity to go with Wales under-18s, he said that this year was about transitioning from playing to coaching and opportunities with age-grade teams don't come around too often, so he was all for it," said Turnbull.

"I've been coaching for quite a while now. I tried to work it out the other day. I think it was 2010/11, with the Scarlets' age-grade team. I coached the under-18s there for four years until I left. Then I did some work with Cardiff U18s, as well as coaching my local rugby club.

"The past three-and-a-half seasons, I've been doing Carmarthen Quins. I've been doing that alongside playing. It's always been something I wanted to go into. Since my early 20s, I've been keen to go into coaching. I've got a lot of joy from that, seeing boys kick on from that.

"Seeing them become internationals or Lions, you can say you've played a small part in their journey. It's been quite rewarding in that sense. Transitioning across this year, I had a number of conversations with Jockey. Coming back from injury, he wanted to play the younger boys, which I was fine with. It took a bit of adjusting to, as I'm used to playing 30 games a season.

"I think I played five off the bench and started one this year, so I wasn't used to that. The plan had been in place since the summer to move across to coach the academy, so trying to bit of both this year, get a feel for it. This season has allowed me to do that."

His work with the younger players coming through at the Arms Park this season, having acted as a mentor to the likes of Mackenzie Martin and Alex Mann, bodes well for his next step as an academy coach. But even in a season that didn't see Turnbull get as many minutes on the pitch as he'd like as those younger players stepped up, it's fitting that his career ended in a milestone.

After all, there were more than a few highlights in the near two decades he's dedicated to Welsh rugby.

The Challenge Cup victory over Gloucester in Bilbao is a highlight, although Turnbull looks back on the semi-final win over Pau more fondly. "Bilbao was just a blur that went by too quickly."

His first cap against Scotland in 2011 after missing out on an appearance on the summer tour of America and Canada two years earlier is another. "Six uncapped boys went on the summer tour in 2009 and I was the only one to come back without a cap. That drove me on to get that cap."

There's other high points, such as the start in what should have been Wales' first win over the Springboks on South African soil in 2014. But maybe the most special was his recall in 2021 under Wayne Pivac.

Off the back of some superb performances for Cardiff, it probably summed up Turnbull as a player more than anything else. At the age of 33, he had forced his way back onto the Test scene after three years without a cap.

"The lucky thing is it was in Wales," he says of the summer Tests against Canada and Argentina. "It was the first time my eldest daughter, who was 12 at this point, had gone to the stadium since she was one. So both my girls had the opportunity to see me play in the national stadium of Wales.

"It's my never-give-up attitude. That kept driving me on. I was flying that year. I think that the five-month break for Covid did me the world of good. You don't tend to get more than five or six weeks off these days. That five months off allowed me to do some different things. I was super fit and super strong going into it and was able to have some really good performances.

"I think so (that you savour it more). I think I knew then it would be my last opportunity to play for Wales. There was a Lions tour then, so there were boys to come back in.

"I was fortunate to come on early in the first two games and then started the last. I thoroughly enjoyed it."

As well as a fine servant to the Welsh game on the field, he's also been an advocate for improvements off the pitch in recent years. His appearance on Scrum V during the proposed strike action last year saw him stand up for all the players in Wales, asking the questions that desperately needed to be asked.

"I probably questioned myself so many times doing it, but at the end of the day, I just wanted the best for the players around me," he says now. "I always told the boys I'd do anything for them and fight their corner.

"All we wanted was answers on how the game was going to be run in Wales. Now there's a six-year funding agreement between the regions and the Union. Hopefully, that can keep on developing and flourish over the next couple of years. I think it's something we've got to be patient with.

"I think that will coincide with a talented group of players coming through. I think in the next couple of years, we'll start to see a younger generation come through. Hopefully they can kick on and the Union and regions can get their funding model right and we can start to see bigger, better squads being developed.

"There's a real good crop at U18s level. There's a bit of a gap, so it might take a few years before we see those players push through in the EDC competition and then once they do and there's a conveyor belt of talent, hopefully, we get back to that golden generation of players that were getting to Junior World Cup semi-finals and finals.

"At an academy level, our job will be to produce players who can play regional rugby. The ultimate goal is to become full regional and international players. We've got to put our time and effort into developing the future of the game."

Crucially, as he prepares to take on a coaching role with Cardiff's academy, he'll be the one putting that time and effort in. If his playing career is anything to go by, that won't be a problem.

And then, it's just a question of where that takes him.

"I wrote down my career path the other day and where I'd like to do," he said. "It's obviously dictated by myself and how hard I want to work for it.

"As a player, I put that effort in. I want to be the best coach I can possibly be. Hopefully one day, I'll be the head coach of a regional or club side. I want to coach at the top end of the game and be successful at it.

"I've used the last few years of my playing career as an apprenticeship, coaching alongside. Hopefully, that puts me in a good position when I transition full-time. The hard work has only just started and there is a lot to learn, but I'm looking forward to it."