Cork's Briege Corkery says she will take the time to consider things before making a decision about returning to the inter-county fold next season.
The St Val's player has committed to over a decade of service to the Cork footballers and camogie team and has played an instrumental role in delivering All-Irelands for the county across both codes.
Following Cork's 11th senior All-Ireland triumph, Corkery was one of six Cork players to be named on the 2016 All-Star team as a midfield partner with Mayo's Fiona McHale. Her previous individual accolades have been awarded for her performances as a defender. Corkery took a sabatical for the 2010 season, the one year that Cork did not win the Brendan Martin Cup and it seems as though she could be considering another break, or even possibly retirement in 2017.
Speaking to Off The Ball's Oisin Langan after the award ceremony last night, Corkery said:
"All along with the last however many years, I've always just came away thinking 'yeah I'll play again next year.' This is the first year I'm thinking 'what's going on?' It's the first year I've ever thought about it. We'll think about it for another few weeks and winter away and we'll decide about it then."
The 2016 @TG4TV All Star team, congratulations to all of our great winners! #TG4Allstars pic.twitter.com/4QkmikDxoA
— Ladies Football (@LadiesFootball) November 13, 2016
She added:
"It's whether you want to put in the hard slog in January, February, March, that's the biggest thing and that's the hardest part of the year. If you can get through that you're grand. I think you need to decide in January whether you're going to miss it or not."
"I love the league games, I love the craic on the bus, we'd be watching videos and that's the part I'd probably miss the most. You don't really enjoy the championship that hugely because you're gearing up for games and the games are hard so I'd hate to miss out on the league."
Speaking about the All-Star gong, Corkery insisted that she was collecting the award on behalf of all her teammates and paid tribute to her midfield partner Rena Buckley who was not named on the All-Star team. Reflecting on 2016 under new manager Ephie Fitzgerald, Corkery admitted that their opening Division 1 defeat to Mayo was a 'worrying factor' but any serious sense of doubt never really had a chance to set in.
"We didn't think too far ahead, we took it training by training, we all got on very well and Ephie brought in a great backroom team. We lost to Kerry in the Munster championship and I suppose that was the moment when we realised we had to get the fingers out and get going."
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