Jeff Hassler is stepping away from rugby. Approaching his 27th birthday the Canadian winger has returned home after a brief trial with English Premiership club Harlequins. While not ruling out a return to the game in the future, Hassler has opted to instead pursue other interests for the time being.

“I met with many teams but due to foreign rules and quotas had a hard time having anything stick. I was considering taking some time off from the game after the Canadian tour this summer to persue other interests and then a trial with Harlequins came up.

“It was one-month trial but after two weeks I told them that I would not be finishing out the trial and thanked them for the opportunity. I am no longer playing rugby at this point in time and will be taking some time to do some things that I have wanted to do for myself for a long time now and will see what the future holds.”

Hassler opted out of the final year of his Ospreys contract in November after spending five seasons with the Guinness Pro Championship. In his 74 appearances across all competitions he scored 25 tries and earned selection to the league’s official Dream Team in his first season.

The Okotoks, Alberta, native was a standout football player in high school and spent two seasons with the Saskatchewan Huskies before switching his focus to rugby. Hassler made his test debut against the US Eagles in June 2012 and won 21 test caps. He started three matches at the 2015 World Cup before missing the entirety of the 2016 and 2017 test seasons with injury. He returned for the World Cup Qualifier against Uruguay in January and started all three of Canada’s tests this past June.

It’s a blow for Canada who now loses one of their top professionals ahead of the all-important World Cup Repechage qualifiers in November. Of some comfort to Kingsley Jones is that wing is a position of relative strength for his side.

DTH van der Merwe and Taylor Paris play for top division European sides and Brock Staller was a starter for the Major League Rugby champion Seattle Seawolves. France-based Conor Trainor is comfortable at outside centre or wing, and the top two domestic options – Kainoa Lloyd and Cole Davis – have impressed in recent months.