{"id":490292,"date":"2026-06-09T08:26:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T08:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/490292\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T08:26:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T08:26:08","slug":"mccaffrey-not-adding-to-retirement-u-turn-trend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/490292\/","title":{"rendered":"McCaffrey not adding to retirement U-turn trend"},"content":{"rendered":"

Four-time All-Star Jack McCaffrey doesn’t envision following John Heslin\u2019s lead and coming out of inter-county retirement.<\/p>\n

The Westmeath man came off the bench in their stunning Leinster final win over Dublin<\/a> last month but despite being 16 months younger than the Lake County forward, the 2015 player of the year feels that his days of inter-county football are at an end.<\/p>\n

As well as Heslin, Donegal\u2019s Michael Murphy, Carlow\u2019s Darragh Foley and Antrim\u2019s Tom\u00e1s McCann are others who have made U-turns since the new rule enhancements came into play, and although they were designed by his former manager Jim Gavin, McCaffrey seems happy with his lot.<\/p>\n

The player did come out of retirement for the 2023 season after stepping away after the 2020 campaign, but chances of a repeat are slim, according to the man himself.<\/p>\n

“I think the Dublin team are moving on with a new group and a new identity,” McCaffrey told RT\u00c9 Radio 1\u2019s Inside Sport.<\/p>\n

“If you ever come up to watch Clontarf play, you won\u2019t be running to get me a Dublin jersey any time soon.<\/p>\n

“I really enjoyed it but I don\u2019t think that probably won\u2019t happen again.”<\/p>\n

McCaffrey has been keeping an eye on Ger Brennan\u2019s progress from afar, and he has massive sympathy for how his former team-mate has had his first season in charge dominated by off-field matters following his 12-week suspension.<\/p>\n

\"PTSB
\nPictured at the launch of PTSB’s new sponsorship of the PTSB Dublin club leagues and championships are Cian Boland, Claire Gannon, Jack McCaffrey and Hannah Tyrrell<\/p>\n

I have great time for Ger,” said McCaffrey, speaking at the launch of the PTSB Dublin club leagues and championships<\/p>\n

“I think it’s a real pity that this happened in his first season when he’s trying to get a new group together and I admire how he dealt with the whole thing.<\/p>\n

“What he did was wrong, is the first thing to say, and he immediately, acknowledged (that).<\/p>\n

“He probably quietly felt that his punishment was harsh. And then he went about appealing it, but, again, didn’t drag it out into public or anything like that.<\/p>\n

“He kept his counsel up until the point…I think he kept his head down and there were other people in the GAA who kept talking about him.<\/p>\n

“I feel he was well within his rights to kind of defend himself <\/a>at that point and just point out how things have gone.”<\/p>\n

Watch an All-Ireland Football Championship double-header, Louth v Armagh (1pm) and Tyrone v Mayo (3.30pm) on Sunday from 12.30pm on RT\u00c92 and RT\u00c9 Player. Follow our live blog on RT\u00c9.ie\/sport and RT\u00c9 News app and listen to commentary on Sunday Sport on RT\u00c9 Radio 1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Four-time All-Star Jack McCaffrey doesn’t envision following John Heslin\u2019s lead and coming out of inter-county retirement. The Westmeath…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":490293,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-490292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/490293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}