DESPITE moving to Athy, and with a club transfer expected, Tyrone star Cathal McCarron insists there is no chance of him switching county allegiance and turning out for Kildare.
McCarron confirmed he had played his last game for home club Dromore in Sunday’s senior championship defeat to Clonoe and, having recently moved to Athy, will turn out at Geraldine Park next year – subject to the formal transfer process.
It is five years since Seanie Johnston controversially switched to the Lilywhites, but McCarron has no intention of following in the Cavan forward’s footsteps.
And, despite the heavy travelling involved, the 29-year-old remains fully committed to the Red Hand cause.
“I’m not going to leave my county to play for another county,” he said.
“When I hang up my county boots, I’ll be hanging them up with Tyrone and that’ll be it.
“I haven’t made any decision yet but if things are right and it feels good then yeah, definitely, I’d like to continue.
“I know it’s not easy with the travelling but you only get one shot at this in life and if I hung up the inter-county boots, I probably would be sitting looking on knowing you could be still playing.
“I’d be kicking myself, I just know I would.”
And McCarron remains convinced that, despite their hugely disappointing All-Ireland semi-final exit to Dublin last month, there is plenty more to come from this Tyrone side.
He continued: “The year before, we were beat by Mayo and we probably sat back in that game. We left that time feeling we should’ve won, whereas we left the Dublin game knowing we didn’t turn up at all.
“Don’t get me wrong, Dublin are very, very good but it’s disappointing knowing you didn’t bring your A-game to the table.
“Our build-up to the semi-final, it probably wasn’t ideal when you weren’t playing tough games. I know you can say the same about Dublin, but they’re at a very high level I suppose and we probably need to be playing at that level week in, week out.
“It’ll do us no harm. You probably learn more from your defeats than you do from winning.
“I know there’s more silverware in that Tyrone team, so it’ll be back to the drawing board in the winter time and we’ll go from there.”
Closer to his adopted home, Athy take on Round Towers in the last eight of the Kildare SFC tomorrow but - having already played championship in another county - McCarron would be ineligible to feature in the red jersey this season.
The Allstar nominee insists he is “not even thinking about football” after the double disappointment with Tyrone and Dromore in recent weeks, but admits a transfer to Athy is “something we’ll look at when the football’s over this year”.
“Where I live in Athy, I could fall out of bed and into the football pitch,” he said.
“Athy’s a great club, one of the top clubs in Kildare, so just because I’m moving place doesn’t mean I don’t want to be competitive at club level as well. Of course I do.
“It’s on my doorstep, I know all the lads down here, I’ve spent a bit of time down here before… it’s a home away from home.”
