PAUL REEStalks to London Irish's Mike Catt, who after Saturday's defeat may well be prompted to put any retirement plans on hold

MIKE CATT could barely articulate his thoughts after London Irish’s first appearance in a play-off final ended in the narrowest of defeats.

When the 37-year-old 2003 World Cup winner was asked if he would carry on playing for another season or concentrate on coaching, he merely said: “We’ll see.”

London Irish’s director of rugby, Toby Booth, would like to see Catt focus on his coaching.

“If you ask him now, he would probably say he did not want to play again,” said Booth.

“We have a few weeks off now and red wine and sun can do funny things to people.”

Winning a Premiership final would have rounded off one of the most successful careers in the professional era.

Catt won the Heineken Cup and the league with Bath and was part of the England squad that won the Grand Slam and the World Cup six years ago. But Irish have failed to clamber over the final hurdles in Europe and the Premiership in the last couple of seasons.

“We had the opportunities to beat Leicester but we did not take them,” said Catt, who was left in tears at the final whistle.

“We chose to take scrums instead of kick at goal at the end of the first half and perhaps we should have gone for the points. Leicester are a wise old side and they always come strong in the second half. We have a great bunch of guys at Irish and this will fire us up for next season.”

Catt, the oldest player on the pitch, lasted for the entire game. He made some telling tackles, moved the Leicester fullback, Geordan Murphy, around with some teasing kicks and showed off his passing skills. But in the bigger picture it was an occasion when two of the most attack-minded sides in the Premiership cancelled each other out, with very little in the way of quick ball on offer.

“It was not a pretty game,” said Catt, whose side were left to reflect on what might have been, in the manner of so many of Leicester’s opponents in the past.

“I am bitterly disappointed,” said the London Irish captain, the secondrow Bob Casey, “but proud in what we are doing. We are going in the right direction, but we cannot keep saying that. At some point we have to win a trophy.”

Catt’s half-back partner on Saturday, the England scrumhalf Paul Hodgson, wants the veteran to play on for at least one more season.

“I am an Arsenal fan and I keep calling Catty Dennis Bergkamp,” he said.

“The Arsenal crowd kept singing “one more year” to Bergkamp (who retired at 37) and I would like Catty to have another season because he is such a fabulous player.

“He does the right things at the right time, putting us in the prime areas of the pitch, and his conditioning is always superb even though he does not do much in the way of pre-season. I think Toby would like him to be in the stand because he is such an amazing coach but it is a decision only Catty can make.”

Catt’s day was ruined by the big cats of Leicester. The Tigers were not at their most fluent, but they know the art of prevailing in tight contests. London Irish, despite Catt’s experience, got their big calls wrong. But they were still just one moment of inspiration away from victory.

“We were by far the superior side for long periods of the game,” said Booth.

“It was a game that was always going to swing on small margins and losing hurts.”

Bergkamp retired after Arsenal lost the 2006 Champions League final against Barcelona in Paris, having stayed on the bench all match.

In Catt’s case, defeat may prompt him to give it one more go.

Guardian Service