THAT EXTRA 19°%o WASNT THERE..IT WAS TIME 10 GO

Blues great Cooper on the moment he knew to leave at the top

- PAT NOLAN

IN the six months or so after Dublin's All-Ireland semi-final loss to Kerry, Jonny Cooper went searching for that little extra.

It wasn't particularly different to what he had undertaken in all the previous close seasons, when he was always able to find an added edge from somewhere to further his development.

"It's not solely the Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday tradition of going to the gym, pitch, analysis all that kind of stuff is standard," he explained.

"Can you kick on? Evolve in lots of ways personally? What extra from a psychology point of view? What bit of magic, bit of value are you going to find? It's all those things more so than the standard catching, kicking, running faster.

Except this time, as the winter drew in, Cooper couldn't find "that 15% more". And so, on New Year's Eve, he announced his retirement from inter-county football.

It went against the prevailing feeling that Dublin were throwing absolutely everything at reclaiming the Sam Maguire Cup in 2023.