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Amazing way to finish my playing career in France with a great player who's been with me since the beginning!! @fcgrugby to @usorugby been a great ride mon @tartifresh 🤘🏼🤘🏼💪🏼💪🏼🇫🇷 bisous Et En route au staff !! Merci a tout et a tous !!! A post shared by Jcudmore (@jncudmore) on May 7, 2017 at 8:57am PDT

Faure and Cudmore were teammates in Grenoble for Cudmore’s first season in French rugby more than a decade ago.

Cudmore later confirmed to The Province that he is now done with his playing career. As was the plan when he first moved to Oyonnax a year ago, Cudmore is moving full time into coaching.

This past season he served as player-coach for Oyonnax, and guided the club to first place in Pro D2, the French second division. His team will play in the Top 14 next season — they were relegated from the top division just one year ago.

Before joining Oyonnax last summer, Cudmore spent a decade at Top 14 powerhouse club Clermont Auvergne.

Along the way, Cudmore won 43 caps for Canada and played at four Rugby World Cups. He made his debut for the national squad in 2002 against the USA.

“Rugby saved me,” he’s said time and again, acknowledging that as a young man he got into trouble with the law. But working as a logger in his late teens, he was guided to the Squamish Axemen rugby club.

Little did he know that would set him up for the rest of his life. It gave him an outlet for his physical nature, as well as demanding a discipline from his which he needed to re-launch his life in the right direction.

He then moved to North Vancouver’s Capilano RFC before starting his overseas adventure with Llandovery in Wales in 2002-03. He returned home for a year but landed with Grenoble in 2004-05 before launching his decade with Clermont a year later.

In recent years, he’s become a strong advocate for player welfare, speaking out about concussion awareness and the struggles tier two nations like Canada face in keeping pace with the elite.

His reputation as a leader grew in recent years, as he helped coach the national side early in 2016 while he recovered from injury, then captaining the squad in his final games last summer and fall.

pjohnston@postmedia.com

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