Former All-Ireland winner Jason Sherlock paid tribute to Jim Gavin after he kept the Dublin forward in his plans before he decided to hang up his boots. 

Sherlock was speaking on Tuesday's Off the Ball to promote his new book "Jayo".

"One of the proudest parts of my career would be the years after I was dropped because to me - I never really gave up on Dublin," he told Joe Molloy. 

"Physically I went until I couldn't do it anymore and I speak about it in the book, when Jim (Gavin) came in, one of the first things I had was a conversation with Jim about would he consider me and full credit to Jim - he could have been putting down the phone 'what's he thinking?' - he probably did because what was I? 36/37 at that stage but he opened the door to that possibility.

"He put me in touch with Fergus Connolly and it was great to get to a stage where I could ring Jim and say 'listen, thank you for the opportunity. I'm not going to be physically able to play' and put the phone down and there was closure. There was release because I felt now my race was run.

"It wasn't run in 2009, to me, it was 2013," he added. 

The full interview is available here: