Down's Damien Rafferty says being forced to retire from intercounty football is "devastating".

The defender was named by James McCartan in his 2012 championship panel and should have been preparing to mark one of Monaghan's dangermen at The Athletic Grounds on Sunday. Instead, he has been forced to hang up his boots by a collarbone / shoulder injury that simply could not be fixed by surgeon's tools.

"It's devastating," the 31-year-old comments in The Irish News. "Gaelic football's been all you know and all you've played from you could walk. You don't know where to go and what to do next.

"I can't play with the club, can't play a bit of soccer to keep fit, I can't even lift weights to build it up.

"I was up to full training, just no contact. And then he [the surgeon] told me about two months ago to consider taking up a non-contact sport.

"I asked him to give it a few months and went down again last Friday and he told me to forget about it, it's never going to heal." Tweet

Most Read Stories