A FOOTY player: the minute you turn 30 people start talking about the end of your career.

At 31, I still believe I have something to offer. If I didn't there's no way in the world I would even think about going around again.

There's a saying in football that you're a long time retired so don't give it away too early. But for me there would be nothing worse than playing a year too long - though not all players think the same way.

I want to finish my footy career in reasonable form and I hope I can be a good judge of how I'm playing.

As a footy club the Swans give us good feedback so that helps to make things pretty simple. But when older players start to look for excuses or say that the club has misjudged them - angling, perhaps, for another year - that's when you get into trouble.

It's kind of sad when a player still thinks he has something to offer when in reality he doesn't. Players at that age start looking for excuses instead of looking in the mirror and thinking: "Well, maybe I am passed it." And I suppose that's the trouble some players get into - they go a year or two too many.

Personally, I think I'll know when the time is right. It will be when I'm doing everything possible to play good footy but the body just won't do it any more. That will be the time to quit.

When performance starts declining and you can't offer as much as you did in the past you have got to start to think about it.

When I was younger, before I got to Sydney, I played with blokes who were at that stage in their careers. You could see they wanted to do it, their mind was telling them to do it, but the body just wouldn't. It was tough for them - thinking they could when the footy club was telling them they couldn't.

It's tough. It's like many a boxer who has done the same thing. Muhammad Ali, who is one of the greatest ever, was beaten by some very average fighters late in his career. It hasn't tarnished his name but consider this: there are some guys out there who can walk around and say they have beaten one of the greatest ever. It's wrong - terrible, actually.

I think it's already been made clear that, with the core group at our club around or over 30, some hard decisions will have to be made this season.

The reality is there willbe guys who will be gone at the end of the year who have done a hell of a lot for the club. It could mean a trade, it could mean delisting, it could mean retired, it could mean anything - it's just a fact the footy club has to deal with it. From a footy club point of view, I can understand it has to be done and I think all players are getting a gist of that now.

It's not so much personal, it's business - and that's just the way it is. At 31 I am in that bracket and I understand that hard calls have got to be made. You've got to cop that on the chin.

In an ideal world I'm happy in Sydney, I love the place and the club, Iwant to stay. But if hard calls have got to be made it's got to be done.

If they do want to trade some older players, or delist us, there need to be clubs that want us. At my age there's probably not a great number of clubs that want me. I haven't had the best year and I have had a bit of off-field baggage. That would naturally weigh against me.