Cusack has no plans to call time on career

DONAL Óg CUSACK insists he has no plans to retire despite recently publishing his highly acclaimed autobiography.

The Cork goalkeeper was in Dublin yesterday where his book, ‘Come What May’, was confirmed as the William Hill Irish Sports Book of the Year.

Despite effectively telling his career story and turning 33 ahead of next year’s championship the Cloyne man insists he has no plans to retire. In fact, the three-time All-Ireland winner wants to play on for several more seasons if possible.

“I would like to think so and I would hope that other people would think so too,” said Cusack. “But you never know. Hurling is like any other sport at the top level.

“You need to take every game as it comes and just hope that everything goes okay next year.

“Obviously I want to keep playing but I don’t think you can look any further than the next game or the next season.

“I think over the last number of years, unfortunately, for one reason or another, we haven’t been able to train over the winter period.

“This is the first winter now when we would have trained properly so hopefully that will pay dividends come the summer but there are no guarantees of anything.”

In his book, Cusack became the first Irish sports personality to publicly reveal he is gay, a revelation he confirmed to the nation via the Late, Late Show.

“I have been very surprised at the amount of reaction and I have been very surprised at the amount of interest in the story,” he said.

“Most of that has been overwhelmingly positive and it is something that I appreciate very much and I am delighted that it turned out that way.”

Cusack has also spent the last few months in discussions between the Gaelic Players Association (GPA) and the GAA regarding formal recognition of the players body.

The GAA recently agreed in principle to recognise the GPA and fund the players body to the tune of €1.6m until the end of 2010.

The GAA’s high powered Central Council meet tomorrow when they’ll discuss whether to formally sponsor the motion at next April’s Annual Congress.

Several northern counties have come out against the link up while Cusack’s own Cork, at a recent county board meeting, asked for more time to discuss the issue at club level before deciding last night to back the GPA.

“Going back to the clubs can only be a good thing, let people have their say,” said Cusack. “You’re always going to have people in disagreement with issues. That’s what democracy’s about. Everybody is entitled to their opinion.”