Ciarán Whelan believes that Galway's All-Ireland championship quarter-final victory over Dublin could signal the 'end of an era’ and he admitted he wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the end of the road for Dessie Farrell.
Galway turned in a stunning second-half performance at Croke Park to beat Dublin by 0-17 to 0-16.
Defeat for the Dubs means that this is the first time in 15 years where they haven’t at least made the All-Ireland semi-finals.
Big question marks will hang over the future of the likes of Stephen Cluxton, Mick Fitzsimons and James McCarthy and speaking afterwards, Farrell conceded that some big names are likely to call it a day in the wake of this defeat.
"It could be an end of an era for some of those Dublin players," said Farrell. "I’m not going to pre-empt anything, but if it is, they have been wonderful servants and they died with their boots on.
"We’ll all take stock and see where we are at.
"It was a disappointing finish to the season, but there is some room for hope and optimism for what lies in the future, whoever may be involved at that point in time.
"We'll reflect on things and see where we are and I’m sure many of the players will have a think about their own futures as well."
Speaking on The Saturday Game, Whelan paid tribute to this Dublin squad after all that they’ve achieved under Farrell, and he feels that there will be plenty of change between now and the start of next season.
"You know, we're not going to pre-empt anything as Dessie Farrell said, but he did mention it could be the end of an era for some," Whelan said.
"There’s a lot of legends and it's the first time they haven't reached the semi-finals since 2009. It's gone to the well so often in the past. A lot of legends in that dressing room.
"Last year's All-Ireland was such a massive victory. It really endorsed the work that Dessie had done after everything. They got such a lift out of it, there was huge momentum within the group to try and push on again, so everybody kind of stayed.
"Last year it was deemed ‘one more year’, but they all came back.
"There's guys and there's legends in that dressing room that have tons of medals and have emptied the tank for Dublin. They've been massive warriors and we'll probably will lose two or three, there's no doubt about it.
"Even Dessie, you know, I think there was probably a bit of persuasion last year for him to give one more year. He might consider his future, so there could be a lot of change."
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