Lyng at peace with retirement decision

‘NEVER food-shop on an empty stomach, you’ll only end up buying items you don’t need’, so goes the advice now being widely broadcast to us in these trying times. Well, on the same note, when you look out the window and see the frost, the snow, the sub-zero temperatures, is this a good time, Derek Lyng, to be considering retirement?

Is that what prompted your decision to end a magnificent career with Kilkenny?

“Not at all,” he laughs, “Actually, I always loved that aspect of it, and that’s the killing thing about it — I’d love to be going back training in January. The friendships — that’s the hardest thing of all, leaving that dressing-room for the last time. Those players are your family for all those years. But this is it, it is all over. Still, what we’ve had for the last few years, what we’ve experienced together, that can’t be bought, and it can’t be taken away either.”