Kilkenny legend Henry Shefflin clearly has no regrets about calling it a day, but as he told Off The Ball's Dave McIntyre following his announcement today he was still half considering playing on for the Cats until recently.
And the 10-time All-Ireland winner told Dave that a perfect 2014, when Kilkenny and his club Ballyhale Shamrocks swept all before them, helped spur him to finish things on a high.
"When you list the list of honours like the Walsh Cup, the National League, Leinster championship with Kilkenny and then the All-Ireland and then to go on and follow in with the club and wrap it up with the All-Ireland, that's how I saw it. Some people will say, 'why make the decision now?' It's because I saw Paddy's day as part of last year's," he said.
"I felt I could have gone back and played and contributed to Kilkenny. But could I have contributed like I contributed five years ago? No I couldn't have because my physical being ... you'd have to be Superman and I am not so I wanted to go at a level that I could contribute."
Henry Shefflin during today's press conference to announce his inter-county retirement ©INPHO/Morgan Treacy
But Shefflin also admitted that in the weeks leading up to the All-Ireland Club final earlier this month, he was still of a mind to continue his inter-county career.
"At that stage I was thinking, would I go back, to be honest? Things had gone very well against Gort and I was feeling in very good shape so I was probably thinking that it was only going to be another four months," he said.
"But with each passing day, I just knew that now was the correct time to make this decision."
Shefflin also looked back on his early days, including his debut campaign in 1999, and how he nearly moved to the US before he got a call up to the Cats' U21s.
But he also described his lowest point as 2010 when he injured his cruciate knee injury.
The 36-year-old also joked about doing a Wolf of Wall Street style announcement today.
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