Niall O’Meara has announced his retirement from inter county hurling.
The 31-year-old Kilruane MacDonaghs clubman won All-Irelands with Tipperary in 2016 and scored the first goal in the 2019 victory over Kilkenny.
O’Meara debuted for the Premier in 2014 and went on to make 45 appearances in the blue and gold.
Speaking to Tipp FM, Niall says with a new born son, priorities change and he felt now was the right time to step away:
“Firstly, thankfully we have a healthy baby boy who’s just 14 weeks old, Mikey O’Meara and obviously that changes your perspective as a sports player.
“You have to be quite selfish to play inter county in ways.
“Since he arrived, myself and Ciara, I suppose my priorities have changed.
“There’s no secret in the county, I’ve had a good few injuries and even this year now I’ve struggled and mentally it got to me for a finish and with everything going on in life I just decided now was the right time to go in a different direction.
“It’s not probably the year I wanted to finish up with it, not everybody goes out the way they would’ve liked to but I just felt the time was right for me to step away and I’m happy with the decision.”
You can hear the full interview with Niall O’Meara on this evening’s Across The Line from 6pm.
