Walsh: "I’ll be able for the nine-to-five life"

Five years after leaving home to carve out an AFL career, 26-year-old Tommy Walsh will shortly return home to Kerry with no regrets and three things on his mind — family, friends and football. The truth is he never left the Kingdom. Nor did it leave him.

Saturday afternoon on St Kilda’s bustling, bohemian Acland St and Walsh has taken a stool in Chocolateria San Churro. The veritable dentist’s heaven and diabetic’s nightmare. Macaroons to the left of him, syrupy speciality coffee to the right, he opts to bypass them for a glass of water. See, Walsh is already back in training.

For Kerins O’Rahillys and, he hopes, Kerry.