After 15 years in the Clare jersey, David Tubridy is now getting used to floodlights of a different kind: in The Sunday Game studio.
But after watching his county get relegated from Division 2 of the Allianz Football League, the competition's all-time leading scorer (22-412) couldn't help but wonder if soldiering on for one more season would have made a difference.
"It's hard to watch, hard to look in," he said at the launch of RTÉ Sport's 2023 championship coverage
"Seeing Clare get relegated this year, it kind of hurt a bit more. Because you're thinking 'If I'd stayed on, would they have stayed up?' You always have those things in the back of your head.
"What ifs. If you were there, you could have kicked that point or done something to settle it. Experience was needed the last few minutes against Kildare and against Dublin as well.
"We lost Cathal O'Connor in the Kildare game, a massive loss, and we had to bring on a few young fellas. Kildare piled the pressure on and we didn’t have the experience to slow down the game. The same with Dublin."
Having met Kerry in six of the previous seven years, Clare seemed to have caught a break in the 2022 Munster SFC draw but suffered a surprise home quarter-final defeat to Limerick, following the first penalty shootout in championship history.
They face a similar route to a provincial final (and place in the All-Ireland series) this year, with Limerick awaiting the winners from Cork's quarter-final trip to Ennis this Sunday.
"When you see the draw last year, it was in my head to stay on," admitted Tubridy. "I was thinking 'There's a great chance of a Munster final here’. But the body told me ‘cop on to yourself. The injuries crept up on me and I didn’t think I’d be able to push myself to the best I could do, to give myself every chance to play. If I did go back in it would probably only have been a 15/20 minute job. I was saying that last year against Derry [in the All-Ireland quarter-final] and the game was over at half-time pretty much.
"You have to win two games, beat Cork and beat Limerick and then you're into the Munster final and into the qualifiers. Most teams, the Kerrys and the Dublins, they can kind of mind themselves leading into those [provincial] games. But from now on for Clare it's going to be a tough battle. I think they can do it [beat Cork] if they get everything right."
The Rebels got the better of Clare in the sides' league meeting last month but Tubridy is confident his former team-mates can reverse that result and push for a first appearance in the Munster decider since 2012.
"I think they have a great chance. Clare seem to like playing in Cusack Park. I think it throws off a few other teams with the length and the width of the pitch.
"It's going to be tough. Clare know what they’re up against. Cork are going well at the moment, they had a good league. Sean Powter moving to centre-forward was a big factor in the league, he got two goals on Clare that day. Matty Taylor at wing-back has been a thorn in Clare’s side as well. Brian Hurley up front, Ian Maguire. They have well-established players that know how to win but hopefully we can catch them on the hop.
"When they played them in the National League I think they were a bit tired, after the Kildare game. But hopefully now things can come together on Sunday and Colm [Collins] can get the win and get the team back on form for the rest of the year.
The Doonbeg man made his Banner debut under the late Páidí Ó Sé in 2007, appearing in that year's Tommy Murphy Cup. But he doesn't want to see Clare in the latest iteration of the second-tier football championship.
"Hopefully now we can get the win and stay out of the Tailteann Cup," he said. "For me, it would be a negative for Clare.
"I thought there would be more of a kick-back from Westmeath this year after winning the Tailteann Cup. But they didn't push on in the league at all. I know they had a tough group with Cavan and Fermanagh, who got promoted. But I thought they would have gone all out to get into Division 2. They had that parachute of already being in the qualifiers.
"Is that going to happen to Clare next year if they drop back down? If they win the Tailteann Cup are they going to sit back and not get promoted or something? It's a funny one.
"I know Colm is thinking around the All-Ireland series. I suppose if they do lose on Sunday well then they can talk about the Tailteann Cup. But I think right now his mindset is championship, championship."
Following Brian Cody's retirement, Collins is now the longest-serving inter-county manager in either code and overseen a revolution in Clare football fortunes over his 10 years in charge. Last year was the second All-Ireland quarter-final the Banner have reached under the Cratloe club man's guidance.
"Everybody can see what he's done for Clare football," said Tubridy. "We were stuck in Division 4, we couldn't get out of there. He came in the first year, got us to Division 3, got us believing that Clare football is not as bad as, you know, as everybody was looking down on them.
"We were probably always in the hurlers' shadow. Getting pitches, getting into Cusack Park was sometimes a problem because the hurlers might have it, or be having meetings, so they got priority. But once Colm came in over Clare football, he put the foot down and didn't let anybody step over us. He got a lot of respect around the county for doing that.
"Just the belief he instilled in us. The first meeting was in the West County [Hotel]. He was saying to us that we were a top 16 team and all you have to do is believe in it. That you've got the skills, you've got everything. He just instilled that in us and we brought the belief forward after that.
"We went straight up to Division 3, two years in Division 3, then up to Division 2 and we were there for the last seven or eight years. We're gone back to Division 3 now, it's disappointing to get relegated but I can see him bouncing back and bringing Clare back up again."
Watch Mayo v Roscommon in the Connacht Football Championship on Sunday from 3.15pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, follow a live blog on RTÉ.ie/Sport and the RTÉ News app or listen to live commentary on RTÉ Radio 1
Watch highlights of all the weekend's championship football and the Allianz Hurling League final on The Sunday Game, RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, 9.30pm
