Ryan: Right time to quit

In the end it was an amicable divorce, Carlow senior hurling manager Kevin Ryan parting company with the squad he coached for the last four years.

Even as he explained his reasoning, however, there was more than a hint of disappointment in Ryan’s voice, regret that he was leaving a work still very much in progress.

“I was speaking to the board and we feel this is the right time to part company,” he said yesterday morning. “My aim always was to leave Carlow hurling better off than it was when I started with them and I hope I’ve done that, but I always wanted to jump rather than being pushed. When I felt I had brought the team as far as I could then it was time to leave — that’s the stage I’ve reached now, a mutual parting of the ways.”