Dublin great Diarmuid Connolly has opened up about his notoriously low media profile, claiming he wanted to retain an 'edge' and a 'mystique'.
The six-time All-Ireland winner rarely appeared in front of a microphone as a Dubs star - though now co-hosts his own podcast.
Chatting with Jonathan Courtenay on their Am Seo Podcast, the ex-attacker said he felt that silence was the best policy.
Few players generated as many headlines as Connolly who was a gifted player that also got caught up in a number of disciplinary controversies.
Asked about dealing with the media and social media, Connolly said: "Some people are comfortable at doing it and some people aren't. What I'd say is that if you are comfortable and good at it, fire away. I'd never knock anyone for doing it.
"But for myself personally that wasn't really what I wanted to do. I felt it took away from a little bit of, I don't know, call it mystique, call it whatever you want.
"I wouldn't like to give anything to an opposition player that I put out on a social media sphere. And that's why I didn't do too much interviews, didn't do too much social media and that sort of thing. I wanted to have a little bit of an edge on your opposition, opponent or team."
St Vincents man Connolly revealed that he stopped reading anything about himself after a chat with golfer Padraig Harrington.
Three-time major winner Harrington says he hasn't read anything about himself since he was a teenager.
Connolly said: "What he did was just cut it out completely and you're in control of it then. That's kind of what I took from that. I was never really a big one for social media, looking through it, reading papers and that sort of stuff.
"I literally just completely cut it out and I found that you don't get the highs and you don't get the lows, you're just kind of steady and that's the high performance culture. It took that talk to kind of make me realise it.
"It's a funny one because people do like to read nice stuff about themselves, let's be honest, but if you're really conscious of not reading anything at all I feel like it keeps you on a steady keel."
Connolly also discussed how the fallout from his 12-week suspension in 2017 for jostling a linesman influenced his decision to spend the summer of 2018 in the US.
He said: "It was a lot of things. Certainly the game against Carlow didn't help my mindset. It probably influenced my decision a small bit."
On former boss Jim Gavin, Connolly revealed that the five-in-a-row winning boss would often ask players 'What's the price you're willing to pay' for success?
Connolly said of skipping the 2018 Championship: "That's what I'm saying, I wasn't willing to pay the price for that year. I wanted to take something for myself and that's what I did."
