Seamus Callanan has revealed how he considered quitting Tipperary having lost his way after an explosive start to his inter-county career.
After being introduced to the panel by Liam Sheedy ahead of the 2008 season, Callanan hit the ground running and was nominated for an All Star in each of his first two campaigns but had lost his starting place by the time he won his first All-Ireland in 2010.
He was in and out of the team over the next number of years but the Drom and Inch man excelled from 2014 on and was nominated for Hurler of the Year for three successive seasons before finally winning the award in 2019, when he also captained Tipperary to the All-Ireland, his third in all.
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Speaking publicly for the first time since he announced his retirement in September on The Game on Sunday podcast, Callanan said: “At the start of 2014 I was at a bit of a crossroads. I was a young player to be at a crossroads. It was kind of a thing, look, I wasn’t really making it anymore and the spark of me coming onto the scene in ‘08 and ‘09 was well and truly gone at that stage.
“Sure look, Eamon [O’Shea, Tipperary manager] said to me at the start of the year, ‘I want to make you my main man, I want to put you in here, I believe in you so show me what you can do’ and we just went at it.
“I knew I had the belief then of the manager at that stage and that he was going to back me. It didn’t work out straight away, first match again, we lost to Limerick in the first round of the Championship and I was very lucky to hold my place after that.
“We played Galway in the qualifiers in Thurles and I went on and I ended up getting 3-7 or something in that match and that really just kicked me off then. The confidence was up.
“I believed that I was meant to be there and just kind of never looked back then since. Not every year was as good but ‘14, ‘15 and ‘16 I had great years and that kind of cemented my place and we went on in ‘16, won the All-Ireland and got it again in ‘19 but there was ups and downs.
“Jesus, there was times there it did enter my head, ‘Look, this isn’t for me and I’m not going to make this here’. But, look, thank God there was a bit of perseverance and I stayed going.”
Elaborating on his decision to retire, Callanan, 35, said that he had made his mind up at the start of the year that it would be his last campaign with the county team.
He explained: “I met with Liam Cahill and Mikey Bevans on three different occasions at the start of 2023 about going back into the panel for the season just gone.
“I suppose I was unsure was I going to go back the year just gone and after a couple of meetings with the boys then, I decided I’d give it a rattle for the year and it was always the case that it was just going to be one year.
“The decision was made back then but, I suppose, throughout the year I was fine with the decision and then I suppose when you press the button to announce retirement, the memories really flood back in and all that and then it becomes a difficult thing to do but I’d say the decision wasn’t difficult.”
He added: “I’ll be watching a League match in February and I’ll be thinking, ‘You know what, I’d love to be out there now this evening’ but once the match is over, you actually don’t want to be out there.
“It’s just for the 60 minutes or 70 minutes of the game, whatever it is, you’d love to be still doing that but it’s the midweek thing and, look, it’s the body and it’s my age.”
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