Paul Flynn admits that he expected a steadier stream of Dublin retirements in the wake of the five-in-a-row success.
Flynn’s former teammates Eoghan O’Gara and Bernard Brogan recently announced their decisions to quit inter-county football though, at this stage, he doesn’t expect that there will be many more, despite the age profile of a number of long-serving stars.
He said: “It’s funny, when the season was still on I was expecting a few more but I see Eoghan O’Gara retired and Frank McGlynn [Donegal] as well.
“I think it’s tight now, I’d say lads will be making up their minds but I wouldn’t be surprised if there was one more maybe.”
He added: “This is their athletic identity. People don’t want to let go of that and it’s a difficult thing to let go of.
“It’s not as easy as saying, ‘One day I’m going to wake up and I’m going to be an inter-county player and the next day I’m going to retire’, there’s a massive void to fill there.
“You need to nearly prepare yourself for that transition out of the game. A lot of players struggle with it and that’s not just in counties like Dublin, that’s in counties as a whole.”
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