Neil McManus retired from inter-county hurling on Wednesday after a 16-year career with Antrim.
"That's me finished with Antrim," he told the BBC's The GAA Social podcast.
"My last game was the Westmeath game in the last round of the Leinster Championship.
"I knew all year that would be my last game if we didn't progress through to the knockout stages, which is very unfortunate because there was a huge opportunity to do so.
"I'm very happy as well with the knowledge of where the Antrim team are now, competing with the teams who are really serious about the knockout end of the championship.
"There's a whole myriad of reasons why I knew this would be my last year. You don't ever want to outstay your welcome. I don't think I was really in danger of doing that.
"I'm busier now than I ever was with things outside of hurling. I want to spend a wee bit more time with my family as well. I have a nine-month-old child in the house as well, which is great."
12 February 2023; Neil McManus of Antrim with his five month old daughter Aoibhín after the Allianz Hurling League Division 1 Group B match between Dublin and Antrim at Parnell Park in Dublin. Photo by Ray McManus/Sportsfile
Though he is calling it a day, he believes "100 per cent" that he would be good enough to play in 2024.
"I have huge belief, say if I decided to go back and play next year, that I would do everything right," he said.
"I'd be in the proper shape physically and athletically and live the lifestyle that's required. It's the lifestyle, not just the training; your lifestyle must match the training that you're doing.
"Our strength and conditioning coach, Brendan Murphy, who is the head of athetlic performance for Antrim - an unbelievable appointment - he gives you so much information.
"I know that I'm fit enough, that my speed is good enough, that my strength is of the required level - athletically I'm good to go. Obviously, the hurling is there.
"That's why I'm able to answer that so definitively."
McManus had considered retiring previously. His wife convinced him to play on last year. Before Darren Gleeson was appointed in the autumn of 2019, he had "decided that was it because Antrim was in a poor shape. What I was putting into it, I didn't think that everybody else was. It was rudderless."
The Ruairí Óg Cushendall man met Gleeson in a Ballymena hotel just before he took charge. The former Tipperary hurler told him, "You'll enjoy this. This is going to be really good, and you deserve to be a part of it. Come and be part of it, and see what you think."
"From that first conversation, at the end of it, he could barely get rid of me," said Gleeson.
"That's the bit I'll miss most, the environment that's there now. Those lads, I can't emphasise enough the time I would have for the men who are in the changing room at the moment, and how close that bond is."
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