Brian McGuigan has revealed how he was left with no option but to retire from inter-county football after holding recent talks with Tyrone manager Mickey Harte.

Due to family commitments, the Ardboe clubman would not have been in a position to return to the county fold until March, but eager to start training early, Harte wasn't agreeable to this.

"I wasn't actually going to say I was retiring, " McGuigan said in the Irish News.

"My wife is due to give birth again in March - that will be our second child - and I couldn't commit before that.

"I told Mickey that I wasn't happy about going back before March. When March comes I said if I felt fit enough to go back I would, but Mickey was saying we'll be training hard in the wintertime and he didn't want me to miss that.

"He said if I came back in March time, well, obviously they'd be doing something wrong if I was fit enough to come back in again at that stage. I suppose that made up my mind." Tweet

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