Johnny Magee is worried that Wicklow - and other weaker football counties - will be decimated even further by the loss of more key men.

The Garden County exited the Leinster SFC when losing narrowly to Louth on Sunday and, as the bigger teams in the country rub their hands in anticipation of the advent of the Super 8s next year, the future looks less encouraging for the lower-ranked counties:

"The likelihood is there will be more players lost, let's be realistic. Before the Super 8 other counties like ourselves are losing players. If they had came with something along with the Super 8, at least you'd have something to work with, but they didn't," the former Dublin midfielder states in The Irish Independent.

"It's just banging a drum for nothing. At what stage can players keep putting themselves out there before a massive exodus? I admire the GAA people of Wicklow hugely because there's no guarantee of more than two games for them.

"They come to training and do what they're told, they're a good footballing side and we just need to get more games at that level to bring the fellas on so that when the opportunity is there to win the game, they've been in that pressure situation before.

"Some players say 'what's the point?', 'what's going on?'. I've lost players during the league saying they're not enjoying it, 'what's the point with two games in summer?'. Some fellas are saying 'I'm going away in the summer on a J1'. Not just Wicklow, it's other counties as well and it's worrying."

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