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Brian Moore announces career is over with parting comments on Welsh rugby and bias claims

Moore has announced he will be stepping back from the commentary box after this weekend

[Brian Moore in the commentary box alongside Eddie Butler]

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Brian Moore in the commentary box alongside Eddie Butler

Brian Moore has announced he is retiring from commentating on live rugby.

The former England and British & Ireland Lions rugby union international will co-commentate on his final game this weekend as France take on the Red Roses in Women's Six Nations Grand Slam decider.

It will bring the curtain down on a 26-year stint behind the microphone, and he says details over his next move will likely emerge soon.

Making the announcement in the Daily Telegraph, Moore reflected on his near three-decade long time in the commentary box, including his relationship with legendary Welshman Eddie Butler. The pair became the iconic voices of the Six Nations, forming a close bond behind the microphone and beyond.

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"I have been extraordinarily lucky to have worked with some of the best commentators in the business," he said.

"My long-time partnership with the late Eddie Butler was a relationship which affected me more personally than I ever imagined when it began.

"Through Eddies passion I got an insight into the preternatural and emotional world of Welsh rugby fandom, that could in turns be savage and destructive but also effusive and communal in a way that few outside the country can appreciate.

"The sight of three middle-aged Welsh fans in tears behind mee in Cardiff for their first Grand Slam win of three under Warren Gatland (2008) brought home to me the depth to which rugby was woven into the soul of Welsh fans."

But despite his apparent respect for the passion of Welsh rugby fans, Moore was often a figure of ire for many on this side of the Severn, with fans in Scotland and Ireland accusing him of bias at times.

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"Of course, I made mistakes and not everybody rated my efforts positively," he continued.

"I think it took me about a decade to persuade most Celtic fans that I was not irredeemably biased towards England, but I eventually gave up trying to gauge this issue when the BBC complaints log against me for a Calcutta Cup game had equal complaints of bias from both Scottish and English fans.

"You have to accept that some people will not like anything you say and much though I yearned to protest about it, everybody is entitled to their opinion."

He did, though, call for more support for pundits and broadcasters who are subjected to abuse in the modern world of social media.

"That freedom of expression should however come with some boundaries in a civil society, which I accept is probably impossible," he said. The last 15 years of this career have been against the background of social media and the ability for anybody to post virtually anything they want in public. Libel and public disorder offences cover the internet in extremis, but I do not accept that personal abuse comes with the job and broadcasters should support their commentators when this happens."

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