'Big Dan' calls time on Déise career

Déise star Dan Shanahan has called time on his career with Waterford’s Senior hurlers.

Shanahan, 33, speaking on Newstalk’s Off The Ball, confirmed that he was bowing out of inter-county hurling in the wake of Sunday’s All-Ireland semi-final defeat to Tipperary.

"My time is up," he said last night. "It’s been a roller coaster, to be honest with you. It has been good and bad but I have made some friends out of it and I have kept some friends. I have won a lot, obviously not the big one, but I can hold my head up high."

The Lismore clubman, who has won four Munster GAA Hurling Senior Championship medals in an inter-county career that has spanned 13 seasons, had already signaled his intentions to retire at the end of the 2010 campaign, but he had hoped to bookend his time in the Waterford jersey with an elusive All-Ireland medal.

Shanahan, who made his Championship debut against Kerry in May 1998, won the coveted Vodafone Hurler of the Year in 2007 and has three GAA All Star awards to his name.

However, ‘Big Dan’, whose calling card has been his ability to score goals at crucial times down through the years, has played more of a peripheral role during Davy Fitzgerald’s management reign and was utilised as an impact sub this year.

He was brought on as a 54th minute sub in Sunday’s seven-point defeat, and he expressed his disappointment with the amount of game time he had been given under Fitzgerald this year.

Fittingly, one of his final significant acts in a Waterford jersey was to score the extra-time goal that defeated great rivals Cork in the Munster GAA Championship final replay last month.

Shanahan, who was a cult figure in Waterford, will be remembered as one of the great goal poachers of the modern game, while his individual style as a forward will be remembered fondly by fans of the small ball game throughout the country.