How has it come to this?

Two of Dublin's most recent All-Stars have been allowed to call time on their inter-county careers within weeks of each other.

Shane Ryan followed Ciaran Whelan into retirement yesterday with an announcement that he would finally be throwing in his lot with the hurlers.

Ryan is considered to be an accomplished hurler but Dublin have moved up a level and his absence from the game for so long doesn't offer him any guarantees. He may have left it too late.

The fact that they are both midfielders and have won their awards in the last two years (Whelan in 2007, Ryan in 2008) can suggest only one thing -- Dublin is overstocked with very high-quality players in the position. Of course, they are not. And no one in their right mind can honestly say that Dublin football will be better off without Whelan and Ryan next season, unless of course the projection to win an All-Ireland title is three or four years down the road.

A clean slate, in that case, would be more appropriate at this stage but Dublin football hasn't and never should operate on the basis that success is further down the road than it should be.

And that's why, regardless of rebuilding and projections for the future, every effort should have been made to keep Whelan and Ryan on the squad.

Age isn't a factor. Whelan is 33, Ryan two years younger, but both players retain strong athleticism and obvious hunger to still play in an All-Ireland final.

Ryan must wonder where it all went so wrong for him. Never, in the 38 year history of the scheme, has a current All Star disappeared with so little trace after winning an award.

He didn't start one competitive game in league or championship last season. Not one. In all of Dublin's four championship games he was, like Whelan, excluded from the start. Against Kerry in the All-Ireland quarter-final he was given a token run out with five minutes remaining.

On that basis, it must be assumed a decision on Ryan was taken before a ball was kicked in earnest last season and he perhaps sensed this all along.

Excluding such an experienced pair was always a gamble for a new manager, a brave one at that for Pat Gilroy.

For three matches it appeared to work well. Meath and Westmeath were summarily dispatched and the continued exclusion seemed to drive on Whelan in particular, as his introduction against Kildare underlined.

But not starting Whelan after that was a mistake, even if hindsight was required to acknowledge that. Was that acknowledged in the debriefing sessions with both players that the Dublin management have had since losing to Kerry?

Gilroy can throw his hands up and say that calling time is the players' own choice. There was nothing he could do.

But what attempt was made to keep them? Was there an arm around the shoulder and an acknowledgement that they should have enjoyed far greater exposure in 2009? If there wasn't, there should have been.

It would be easy to dismiss them as figures from a past that was marked by consecutive failures beyond the province. But the future doesn't paint a brighter blue future -- as their last game of the season against Kerry so clearly underlined.

It may have taken four championship games but it was quite obvious that day that a Whelan/Ryan partnership serves Dublin better than Darren Magee and Ross McConnell.

Whelan's peers from the last decade were all still going strong into their 30s. Kerry's Darragh O Se, his most enduring rival, has yet to make a decision on his future, while only injury curtailed 35-year-old Paul McGrane from extending his career to a 17th season with Armagh.

Renaissance

In the season just gone by, Kildare's Dermot Earley enjoyed a renaissance at 31 that is sure to continue for at least another season.

What Gilroy and his management team did this year with two of the most experienced players available to them was brave. But it failed.

Now Anthony Daly and the hurlers are set to benefit. Ryan attended a meeting of the hurling squad on Monday night. The significance of that won't be lost on those within Dublin football who see the small ball gaining in such stature in the capital.

Can Dublin really afford to be without them?

Irish Independent