GENERALLY speaking, Premiership players don't inspire much sympathy.

The perception is that they are given large dumptrucks full of cash every week in exchange for buying garish jewellery, going dogging, appearing on MTV's Cribs and occasionally underperforming on the football pitch, all done while looking sullen and unappreciative of their cushy lot in life. The complete bastards.

But let's compare and contrast for a moment. Tipperary's Declan Browne retired from intercounty football during the week and popped up on a few different radio stations during the week to explain his reasoning for calling it a day at the relatively young age of 29. Browne has been quite possibly the best forward to play the game over the last decade, and the only thing that matched his dizzying talent was his humble nature.

Add in the fact that most people saw him as being unlucky to play for footballing minnows (something Browne himself never agreed with) and it's easy to see why he's held in such high esteem.

Text messages flooded into RTE and Newstalk with people telling him they were honoured to see him play and wishing him the best. Some wags from Grangemockler, who would have regularly suffered at Browne's hands in a Moyle Rovers jersey, texted to thank him for his years of service to Tipperary and to suggest he retire from the club scene too. Nice try.

Another person to announce a retirement this week was Liverpool's Jamie Carragher, who decided he would no longer put himself forward for selection for England. Given that Carragher has been performing brilliantly for Liverpool for years and still finds himself behind Ledley King in Steve McClaren's pecking order of central defenders, his reasoning seemed solid and you would have expected most people to accept his decision with the same graciousness that Browne was afforded.

But no, instead Adrian Durham on talkSPORT lambasted Carragher for opting out of future England squads and called him a "bottler".

Calling a man who grows in stature to match the occasion a "bottler" was possibly just a deliberately inflammatory comment to get the phone lines jumping. What he didn't expect was that the man jumping down the phone line would be Carragher himself, who called the show after hearing the comment. You could practically hear a gulp from the host as Carragher came on air and railed at him.

He was apoplectic with rage and that, combined with a treacle-thick Scouse accent, made the first few minutes of his tirade unintelligible, but no less entertaining for that. The basic gist of it was, "Why don't you come here and say that to my face?"

Incredibly, Durham actually gathered himself and stuck to his guns. Carragher tried to reason with him but, as with England, eventually tired of it and politely signed off. At least, given that you could count on one finger of one hand the number of Premiership players that would have made the phone call, Carragher showed the "bottler" jibe to be ridiculous. Go play for Tipperary Jamie, they've got a vacancy at full-forward and at least your efforts will be appreciated.

The Road to Croker began this week and got off to an impressive start. Last year Park Live tried to make GAA seem young and hip, but it all fell a bit flat so this season we're back in the safe hands of Des Cahill. The format sounded worryingly like the segments from Sunday Sport during the winter where random clubs around the country were visited, but thankfully this felt more like a television programme and less like someone filming a conversation down the local.

The show visited the St Oliver Plunkett's club in Dublin and Des kept everything moving smoothly in his familiar laid-back cuddly bear style, and the crowd loved him. One of the odd things about Park Live last year was the sound mix, whenever the audience laughed it sounded like a titter at the back of a cathedral and it created a curious non-atmosphere.

The same mistake wasn't made here though and every gag was followed by chortles, guffaws and belly laughs. In fairness though Des was value for money, particularly good was his first question to Sligo's Kieran Quinn . . . "You were a student in Trinity of psychology and philosophy, like so many GAA playersf" The prescient decision to shadow Sligo kit man Reggie McNulty for the day of the Connacht final paid off in spades and Martin McHugh turned up to remind us all what an excellent football analyst he is, although he probably won't have thanked Des for letting him finish an oration on Alan Brogan's shortcomings before pointing out that his parents were sitting just a few feet away. Entertaining stuff, we'll follow this Road to September.