Dermot Earley retires from inter-county football

Kildare legend Dermot Earley has been forced to call time on a superb inter-county football career due to a back injury.

The 34-year-old, who won All Stars in 1998 and 2009, announced his retirement in an interview on Newstalk's Sports Sunday programme this afternoon.

Earley recently had surgery on a bulging disc in his back, which he suffered in the warm-up to a league game against Dublin in Croke Park, and has conceded that he won't recover in time to play any part in this year's championship.

The Sarsfields man, who had just battled his way back to full fitness following a litany of serious knee problems, had already stated that he would retire at the end of the season, and confirmed today that he had decided to pull the curtain down on a brilliant career.

"Unfortunately, I hurt the back in the warm-up against Dublin on the 10th of May and what I thought was a spasm was a disc that was bulging and hitting a nerve, and over the next two weeks it got progressively worse," he told Newstalk.

"I was really struggling with it and ended up having to have surgery. I had one operation that didn't work and I had to go back in the following week to have a second one so that was five weeks.

"Initially, the first couple of weeks were very slow, but the last 10 days to two weeks I have started to feel a bit normal again and come back to myself. It's a serious injury that does have a long rehab plan and to rehab it correctly I just don't have enough time this season to do it.

"I had said it was going to be my last season anyway so unfortunately this operation has really ended my inter-county career. I'm quite sad about it but at the same time I am happy enough to make that decision.

"You'd like to finish on your own terms and go out on the playing field, but your health is your wealth and my body has been through a lot over the last number of years and I think this is the right decision to give it a rest and let it heal properly."