Will Tadhg make a Kingdom comeback?

HERE ye, here ye, people of Kerry, Tadhg Kennelly is a free agent. Let the will-he-won’t-he’s begin.

Have no doubt, Kennelly will contribute to the rumour mill. Although he has explained he wants to remain on in the AFL in some shape or form after this his final season, there’s nothing really to say he won’t be donning the green and gold again.

After all, didn’t he tell the official GAA website before last year’s International Rules series that he still had a desire to play top-level Gaelic football? “It’s just not the same when I’m playing in the MCG in front of 100,000 people than when I’m playing [in Croke Park] in front of 80,000 people,” Kennelly said at the time.

“It’s a place I want to play in more regularly and that desire is always going to be there.”

Kennelly earlier this year dismissed speculation about him returning to Kerry colours for a second time as “silly” even though it was he who spawned it.

Having just turned 30 a couple of months ago, he is still a young and exceptionally gifted man and Jack O’Connor has shown he has no problem in resurrecting the careers of thirtysomethings.

Secondly, as much as Kennelly yesterday cited injuries as the reason for him turning down a new Swans contract, he doesn’t rank a GAA season as strenuous as an AFL one.

Thirdly, another season for Kerry would go a long way to healing some of the wounds left in 2009.

We’ll come to the Nicholas Murphy elbow story in a second but from a Kerry perspective a return would mean a lot. Let’s call it for what it was — Kennelly’s 2009 All-Ireland success was a grab-and-run. A life-long ambition fulfilled — he quit while he was ahead.

He didn’t exactly ride in on the coat-tails of a fantastic Kerry team — he did his bit too — but he might have been a little more humble about it.

He claims he sacrificed €374,000 in AFL earnings to follow in his great father Tim’s footsteps but no price should ever have to be put on emulating something so precious. That revelation, along with the elbow on Murphy at the start of the 2009 final, in his autobiography left a sour taste.

It besmirched the victory.

Now that he’s at a loose end of sorts, Kennelly has the opportunity to put a few things right. He has his All-Ireland medal, true. To see Kennelly echo the feats of his father and brother Noel on the Hogan Stand steps (with a jig thrown in for good measure) was an emotional moment but one tarnished by his exit and autobiography.

When people talk about players owing nothing to the county jersey, they speak of men who have given years of sterling service. On that count, Kennelly is still in the red.

Cork would love to see him back (in the firing line) but surely that sort of challenge would excite an athlete of his worth.

After the rash of retirements that will surely follow this month’s final, surely he can answer the call to help Kerry build again?