Donegal manager Rory Gallagher has admitted that the retirement of so many players has not come as a surprise.

This week alone, Rory Kavanagh, Christy Toye and David Walsh announced their inter-county retirement along with Eamon McGee and Colm McFadden who stepped down before Christmas.

The future of Anthony Thompson is still up in the air, while Odhran MacNiallais and Leo McLoone have opted off the squad for the 2017 campaign.

Gallagher has taken all of this in his stride as he sets about to build a new squad, but he stressed to the Donegal Democrat that he has known about the withdrawals for some time.

"It was always felt that Christy could have been possibly there and Anthony hasn't totally closed the door," said Gallagher.

"Anthony has a number of commitments coming up at the start of the year, some of them are as late as the start of April. The way we have left it with Anthony is that we will talk to him at the end of April.

"We were aware from last April that Odhran was going to take a break in 2017. The deal with Rory was always to come back and give it one year.

"Rory is 35 this year, Christy is 34 this year, David Walsh will be 35 this year, Colm McFadden will be 34 this year. We were well aware that the road was ending for them."

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