Aisake predicts Setanta return

AISAKE O hAILPÍN has predicted that his brother Setanta will follow Tadhg Kennelly’s footsteps by returning from Australia to play for his native county before the end of his career.

Kennelly walked away from the professional Aussie Rules game towards the end of 2008 in order to fulfill his dream of winning a senior All-Ireland medal with Kerry and thereby emulate his father Tim and brother Noel.

Setanta is currently on the books at Carlton where he has enjoyed his best start to a season after a long and patient struggle to establish himself in the oval code but Aisake can see him lining out for Cork again before he retires.

“I reckon he would,” said Aisake who was under contract at Carlton before returning home and onto the Cork senior hurling panel.

“You only have to look at Tadhg, his passion to come back. (Setanta) played in an All-Ireland final in 2003 and they didn’t win so it would be a nice story to tell, especially after playing out there. Who knows? It’s in the future.”

Setanta may not have reached the heights achieved by Kennelly, Jim Stynes or Sean Wight just yet but he is the first Irish player to make a decent fist of establishing himself as a forward in the Australian code.

“He’s started up forward this year, which is good. It’s taken him six or seven years now. He started as a defender but, growing up with him, he was a natural forward, hurling and football, especially with our club.

“When he played minor football he was a forward but with a different game and a different shaped ball it does take three or four years to know where to run, how to kick it properly and how to attack the ball.”

Setanta would be an obvious target for Irish International Rules manager Anthony Tohill later this year and Aisake has also declared his interest in emulating Sean Óg who represented his country in the code despite being a member of the Cork hurling panel.