Sideline Cut: There may have been a splash of morbidity to the general curiosity that brought a handful of us to the Sportsground last night to see Neil Jenkins close out his rugby career.

Leaving sport is a messy business and rare are the perfect exits.

The common story is of athletes who either wistfully hang around for a couple of seasons too long, or those who succumb to tiredness or boredom or hubris and walk away too early. Mastering one's fate, recognising when the signs are there is a delicate trick, and in a way it requires an element of the cold-hearted. It is the one time in the life-span of a sports person when it is correct that they should convince themselves that they no longer have it anymore. In a sense, they have to separate themselves from their self-belief.

Few manage it. Even the American icon and notorious disciplinarian Michael Jordan - who wrote himself the perfect epitaph by draining a last-second shot to win the NBA championship for the Chicago Bulls in 1998 - could not resist tampering with it.

Instead of departing the arena as the greatest matador of all time, he felt compelled to return, and although he sporadically flashed moments of genius, he concluded his career as a broken-down 40-year-old.

From Pete Sampras sitting disconsolately at courtside reading and rereading a letter from his wife after an early Wimbledon defeat in the autumn of his career, to the more local occasion of a GAA player featuring in his last game for club or county, there is the sense of a small death about sporting retirement. It means that the athlete is turning away from the thing he or she more than likely does best in life.

I doubt many sports people choose to devote much time at all to thinking about their last occasion on the field, but that whatever fleeting thought goes into it is bathed in magnificence: a final, a winning score, an Olympic medal. But very few get to choose the circumstances of their last athletic appearance.

Last night's game in Galway was of no relevance beyond the competitive spirit that sparked between the two teams during the 80 minutes. The Celtic League title was being decided elsewhere, both camps were breaking up for summer and there was a festive mood around the city, a feeling that the tourist season had arrived and that rugby should be housed in the attic until next winter.

Galway, the last outpost of rugby union, was a strange place for Neil Jenkins, the ruddy-faced hero of the Valleys, to take his bow. A decent crowd of Welsh supporters made the trip across to the west of Ireland to salute their hero, the all-time record points scorer at international level with 1,049 scored over 12 seasons with Wales.

He was recognisable as ever, ginger-topped and jug-eared and still kind of schoolboy-ish, and before the kick-off he was presented with a token in front of the vociferous visiting fans, many of whom raised plastic pitchers of beer as a gesture of solidarity.

He did not start the game, wearing instead the number 21 jersey and huddling in the bench along with other replacements.

So there was a sense of deferral about the warm and pleasant evening as the visitors waited and waited for the last acts of a man who commanded full choirs in the old Cardiff Arms Park and who knew no nerve when it came to kicking a rugby ball. When he finally broke the international record, passing the Australian Michael Lynagh, he said something to the effect, "I am just a boy from the Valleys. I still can't quite believe it when I hear my name spoken in the same sentences as legends from the past."

With half an hour gone, only a single penalty had been kicked and the thought occurred that, in the professional era, there may be no room for sentiment and Jenkins would sit out his last hour.

In 1960, John Updike wrote an unforgettable essay for The New Yorker about the day when Ted Williams, the great batter who had a prickly and antagonistic relationship with the Boston fans, played his last game for the Red Sox. It was, of course, a nothing game played on a humdrum Wednesday afternoon "so glowering that in the sixth inning the arc lights were turned on - always a wan sight in the daytime, like the headlights of a funeral procession".

For a long time, the game was depressing and anti-climactic, but, Fenway being Fenway and Williams being Williams, a home run was duly delivered along with one of the most famous paragraphs in American sportswriting.

"He ran as he always ran out home runs - hurriedly, unsmiling, head down, as if our praise were a storm of rain to get out of. He didn't tip his cap. Though we thumped, wept and chanted 'We want Ted' for minutes after he hid in the dugout, he did not come back. Our noise for some seconds passed beyond excitement into a kind of immense, open anguish, a wailing, a cry to be saved. But immortality is nontransferable. The papers said that the other players, and even the umpires on the field, begged him to come out and acknowledge us in some way, but he never had and did not now. Gods do not answer letters."

Those were bolder times and only one athlete in a million gets to enjoy the sensation of leaving the crowd beseeching for more.

At half-time last night, Jenkins threw a ball around an empty field with the four other replacements while plans to close out the season on a bright note were hatched in the dressing-room.

In the second half, the Celtic Warriors cut loose with two lovely tries and outhalf Ceri Sweeney duly dispatched his penalties. Neil Jenkins applauded heartily from the bench. As we watched, he became, like ourselves, one of the crowd.

He came in with 20 minutes remaining, with the score at 20-3, and received a hug from the departing Sweeney. Nothing magical happened after his arrival. He tried a little grubber kick on what turned out to be his final visit inside an opposing 22-metre line, but nothing came of it. After that the Welsh side were penned deep inside their half and Jenkins threw two passes that were intercepted and almost led to Connacht tries.

His last kick was of consequence only in that it was his last, a short, spiralling clearance to relieve pressure. He found touch, safely and without ceremony, and shortly afterwards the final whistle sounded.

The Connacht players lingered on the field to applaud the home crowd for their support all season while Jenkins walked away with the visiting team towards the rest of his life.