There is a general belief that great events should defy simple explanation, that behind every top story lurks labyrinthine intrigue. There would, for instance, be limited appetite for the view that Lee Harvey Oswald simply never liked Kennedy. Accordingly, the news that DJ Carey has decided, at the age of 27, to retire from hurling, at both club and county level, stirred an immediate rush of scepticism.

A stampede of inquiries trampled through the following days. Surely there had to be more to it than that? Factions? Rows? Money? Golf? No one retires at 27 when they're at the top of their sport. Carey's explanation that he had lost his appetite prompted one eminent Kilkenny hurling man to exclaim: "Lost his appetite! When you lose your appetite, you take medicine and get it back."

The reaction was predictable. Apart from the example of George Best - adeptly cited by former Kilkenny manager Nicky Brennan on Radio One last Wednesday - it's hard to think of any sporting legends who abandoned their chosen game in their mid-20s.

First up in the hidden agenda lists was the issue of a club-based row. New Kilkenny manager Kevin Fennelly was coach at Carey's club, Gowran, and a selection controversy involving DJ's brother Martin being dropped was widely mentioned as being a likely influence.

Aside from the essentially trivial nature of the dispute and Carey's well-grounded dismissal of the suggestion - that he was too prominent a player to get involved in selection rows at the club - his relationship with Fennelly doesn't appear to have suffered the massive rupture necessary to occasion retirement from the game. They remain regular golf partner, an arrangement that could hardly have survived a major falling-out.

Golf in general had become something of an unspoken issue in the county. Carey's metamorphosis into one of those golf devotees whose enthusiasms remain an arcane mystery to the uninitiated had prompted a rumour that he wanted to give the game his full attention.

A seven-handicapper, Carey had availed of a free session - a concession to his celebrity in another sport - with golf guru David Leadbetter in Florida. Some of the wilder talk had him going full-tilt for a golfing career, either as a high-ranking amateur or even trying his hand at the professional qualifying schools.

Carey would need to be particularly naive to believe that in his mid20s he could master a sport to the level where it offered him a livelihood. In any case, he flatly rejected the golf argument. "I'm not a serious golfer. I enjoy playing it, but I'm not up to even top amateur golf."

Furthermore, he refuted the view that golf interfered with his hurling - at least one respected hurling coach believes that the two games are incompatible during the championship season - by pointing out that he hits the ball off different sides in the respective games.

His own explanation of loss of interest and fatigue mightn't have been immediately accepted, but to a greater extent than all the competing rumours, it has the merit of plausibility.

Since he was a schoolboy, Carey has been news in hurling. In 1988 when he was on All-Ireland-winning teams at both colleges and minor level, the young DJ was already the subject of national media attention. He first played for the senior county team while still at school. In addition, the expectation levels soared from an early stage.

For most of his career, he has been going into matches carrying the hopes of his team to a disproportionate extent. Diarmuid Healy, who managed Kilkenny for two years and gave Carey his championship debut, points out that the player's career has been non-stop. "This will be the first break he's had, the first decent rest. I hope he'll reconsider next year, if not this, but I can understand his feelings."

Carey's own response to the question about how he'll feel when the good weather comes in and his former colleagues - particularly at club level - embark on their championship season is convincing. If the retirement was a contrivance, he'd have thought up a better answer than: "I don't know, anymore than I can say how much I'll miss the inter-county scene".

Still some questions remain. Firstly, county chairman John Healy's reservation - "I'm doubtful about it. I think there's more to it, but it's nothing to do with the county board" - suggests that the belief in hidden agenda isn't confined to reporters anxious for a story.

Secondly, there is the fact that Carey wanted to delay publication of the details of his retirement in last week's Kilkenny People. The insistence of the Irish Independent, whose GAA correspondent Liam Horan had got the story independently, made Carey realise that the news was coming out whether he liked it or not and prompted him to allow it to emerge in the full range of media outlets.

Both Fennelly and John Healy are on record as expressing the belief that Carey was wavering and that the media blitz may have backed the player into a corner.

If this suggests a lack of resolution on Carey's part - and the player denies it saying he was only accommodating the county board by trying to postpone the announcement - there will be plenty to test his intentions more fully in the months and even years ahead. Any time Kilkenny are going badly over the coming years, he is likely to be receiving supplicant delegations to his door.

Early retirement is also bound to have an impact on posterity's judgement. Nothing can alter Carey's status as an outstanding player. Entry to the pantheon is more demanding. Jimmy Barry Murphy's retirement was regarded as a bit of a shock, but he was 32 and had five All-Ireland medals.

Christy Ring, with whom Carey - or Carey's potential - has occasionally been compared, hurled at intercounty over four decades, won the Texaco Hurler of the Year award at the age of 39 and retired from club hurling well into his 40s, a career that would be nearly 20 years longer than Carey intends.

One optimistic prognosis is that retirement constitutes the player's only way of securing a break and that a prolonged rest will rekindle his lost appetite. Virtually everyone will hope so and that Kevin Fennelly's words will prove prophetic: "I hope to be talking to you all (the media) when you come down to report on his comeback."