YOU hear it a lot; ‘there’s no place for sentiment in sport’.

When a player has passed their peak, when someone is no longer able to adequately perform their job, they are often shipped off, unceremoniously to a lower-level club, coaching position or ambassadorial role.

In individual sports, these falls from grace can be painful, hard to watch.

The romantic in us wants Roger Federer to carry on winning Grand Slams forever, Tiger Woods to rediscover the form that brought him to the world’s attention or Mike Tyson to fight again.

There, often lies a problem in itself. Sports people, at the very top, find it hard to kiss goodbye to the game they love.

I spoke to Quinton Fortune a couple of years ago after a Manchester United versus Real Madrid legends game.

He told me Zinedine Zidane would still walk into any European team.

Warrington Guardian: Ya beauty ... Zinedine Zidane's goal is the best

But Zizou, still regarded as one of the greatest players of a generation, had called time on his career and had no intention of blighting it with a return (overlooking headbuttgate, of course).

For others, a return to the sporting arena is rarely successful be it Ricky Hatton stepping back into the ring, Kenny Dalglish returning to the Liverpool manager’s job or Michael Schumacher retaking the wheel in his 40s.

For clubs and sponsors, the multi-million pound industry that is sport dictates there can be no room for sentiment.

Clubs cannot afford to keep hold of players who are no longer good enough and athletes that aren’t winning races won’t sell a sponsor’s product.

Last week Warrington Wolves cut loose captain Joel Monaghan after an indifferent season, while Steve Gerrard faced the same fate after nearly two decades at Liverpool.

It’s great when everything comes together for a highly-regarded athlete to go out at the top of their game, or when fate transpires a legend to lift one last trophy.

But top-level sport rarely works like that, just ask retired Australia captain Michael Clarke after his side’s Ashes defeat this summer.

Warrington Guardian: Michael Clarke

Instead, the sentiment falls to us in the stands.

The spectators, self-indulgent in their side’s success, following them through thick and thin, discussing the ‘good old days’ and how the ‘future’s bright’ or the journalists, with their exaggerated tales of nostalgia, sporting greats and boys-done-good.

Those stories get better over time, the cruel world of sport often means the athletes do not.

The answer to last week's trivia – Who is the only player to score in successive Rugby World Cup finals? – is Jonny Wilkinson, 2003 and 2007.