The Gooch and Tommy Walsh back in the All-Ireland Champions’ forward line for the 2015 Championship? Chew on that for a minute Kerry fans.
Sydney Swans this morning confirmed that Walsh has decided to call time on his AFL career and return home to Ireland, bringing to an end a five-year spell Down Under during which he played with St. Kilda as well as the Swans, who lost to Hawthorn in the AFL Grand Final in the MCG on Saturday.
Walsh played only five senior games for the Swans after joining them in 2011, but he was plagued by injuries during his time in Sydney and speculation that he was going to return home at the end of this season had been doing the rounds for some time before it was confirmed today.
Commenting on his decision, Walsh said: I’ve really enjoyed my time here. It’s the best thing I ever did.
“To be able to experience professional sport in two great cities with two great clubs, I’ve met a lot of great people and I’ll have friends for the rest of my life over here.
“I’m not sure when, but I’m looking forward to coming back over here already for a holiday a few years down the line and catching up with everyone again.”
Walsh said he was looking forward to returning to club duty with Kerins O’Rahilly’s but was too modest to speculate about his future career with the county team; considering what a player he was before he left and that living in a professional environment for the last few years can only have helped his conditioning, it seems inevitable that he’ll be in Eamonn Fitzmaurice’s plans next season.
“It was obviously something I wanted to do since I came out here, and I always knew I’d be going back and after five years here I knew that the time was right,” Walsh said.
“I’ll be going back to my club Kerins O’Rahilly’s and I don’t know, but maybe Kerry as well.”
As if being All-Ireland Champions wasn’t reason to be happy enough, come 2015 Kerry fans can look forward to watching a forward line containing this year’s Footballer of the Year elect, the greatest forward of the modern era and a man returning from professional sport at an age (26) where he’s about to hit his peak years.
If that doesn’t send a shiver down the spine of Kerry’s would-be challengers next season we don’t know what will.
