Joe Canning has addressed the suggestion that he may be approaching the end of his inter-county career with Galway.
With a tally of 0-9 to his name, Joe Canning surpassed Henry Shefflin as the hurling championship's all-time top scorer last weekend. Unfortunately for Canning and Galway, it was not enough to help the county overcome Waterford as their season came to an end.
Canning's 13th year as a Galway senior hurler, it has been questioned how much longer the talismanic 32-year-old has got left playing the inter-county game.
"I've heard a good bit over the last few days," he told Wednesday's OTB AM. "I think James Skehill was on your show telling me that it is nearly time to retire.
"If you listen to everybody, some people tell me, 'Yeah, retire,' and some people tell me not to. So, we'll leave it for another day."
Canning did admit some surprise that other players similar in age to him were not having their futures speculated upon.
"I'm the same age as a few lads in other counties and they don't get asked these questions," he said. "It is funny people want to retire you at some stage.
"I haven't made [any decision] yet."
Although he suggested that there has been no firm decision made on his future one way or another, Canning admitted that his body had taken a toll from many years of hurling.
"I've had a good few injuries over the last couple of years," he noted. "Even just before the match [last weekend] I was strapping my thumb and strapping my finger from the other day at training.
"My heel was at me there the last few weeks so, yeah, it is funny when you get older it is harder to recover from injuries. I've had three surgeries in the last five years and they're not your ordinary surgeries.
"I've played senior championship hurling with Portumna for 17 years. So, you know, I've played a lot more hurling when I was younger than most lads my age.
"It is hard to know."
Joe Canning: The retirement question
In the aftermath of Galway's All-Ireland qualifiers defeat to Waterford last weekend, OTB Sports hurling pundit and former Galway hurler James Skehill raised the point of potential retirements.
A member of the county's All-Ireland winning team in 2017, Skehill admitted that he was not sure how much longer the 32-year-old Canning would play on.
"I think there's going to be a lot of soul-searching done and the guys on the team who have been there for 10, 12 years, they will probably look at their own situations," he suggested.
"They'll look at the team and say, 'Am I going to put this much effort for 12 more months? Is there an All-Ireland in this team when you're facing the likes of Limerick?' I'd say there could be three or four retirements in Galway at this stage.
"A big thing... was [that] Joe thankfully got the record today and] it is a great feat for him, but I'm not sure how much time he has left in a Galway jersey."
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