Scanlon ends Kerry career

HE was described as “a very hard bas***d” last night by his Kerry colleague Paul Galvin, but one of the toughest calls Seamus Scanlon had to make was the weekend decision to walk away from inter-county football at 30.

The three-time All-Ireland winner had an aversion to publicity but not hard work. Only those who toiled in football’s engine room with him would have a true appreciation of what the Currow man brought to the table.

“You tangled with him at your own risk, he took no sh*t” Galvin tweeted yesterday after Scanlon confirmed he was retiring from the inter-county game. Though he wouldn’t admit it, he had grown weary and frustrated at playing second fiddle behind Bryan Sheehan and Anthony Maher with Kerry. With Johnny Buckley and David Moran waiting in the wings, the prospects for 2013 weren’t that encouraging either.