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Cian O'Neill: I'm happy to see Paddy Brophy home'

Cian O'Neill

Cian O'Neill

 By John Harrington

Kildare manager Cian O’Neill says Paddy Brophy’s decision to call time on his Australian Rules career and return home is ‘great news’ for the Lilywhites.

Brophy joined the Perth-based West Coast Eagles in 2014 and played regularly in the West Australian Football League for East Perth, but never quite made the step up to the senior team in the AFL.

“Listen it's great news and it's positive news for Kildare GAA and for Celbridge his club,” said O’Neill today at the launch of the Leinster Senior Football and Hurling Championships in the Pearse Museum.

“If and when things happen, I think the most important thing is that on a human level that Paddy's in a good space when he comes home because it'll be a massive transition.

“When he gets home he needs to focus on his assimilation back home, be that work, colleges, family, friends, relationships. If football comes into that in the short-term, absolutely fantastic, hugely exciting.

“If it's more medium to long term, depending on circumstances, then so be it.

“I'm just disappointed for Paddy on one level that he felt it was time for him to come home and it didn't go to another level over.

“But at the same time in a selfish way and as a Kildare man, happy to see him on that plane coming home over the next couple of weeks.”

O’Neill has put no time-line on Brophy’s potential return to the Kildare set-up, and believes everyone is going to have to show some patience with him as he re-assimilates to inter-county Gaelic Football.

“When he comes home he needs to make sure mentally as well as physically, socially and emotionally that he's in a good space,” said O’Neill.

“There'll be no forcing or pressuring. I think when Paddy is good and ready, we'll have a good conversation about that. All the players and management will welcome him back with open arms. It's really exciting but I think everything needs to be in context.

“It can't be a rushed effort. The other side of things is that the squad are going well. Paddy will be a huge addition when he's good and ready. I can't wait to have him back in but I don't want to put a timeline on it.”

Cian O'Neill

Cian O'Neill

O’Neill is the third Kildare footballer to cut short his stay with an AFL club after Daniel Flynn and Sean Hurley.

Flynn is in the Kildare panel at the moment, but Sean Hurley withdrew from it at the start of the year to focus on rehabbing a number of injuries he brought home from Australia.

“Sean's issue with coming home was he had some serious injuries, some unfortunate injuries," said O'Neill. For me the key thing is to get him physically right and then we'll see where things are at.

“We review it on a regular basis to be honest. He's on a reduced training load, he's back with his club Johnstownbridge, he'll feature all going well in the club championship this weekend.

“But I know that he hasn't been training fully because we're trying to monitor his workload and make sure he doesn't break down.

"As you can appreciate when you move up to county level, it'd be very difficult to perform at that level if you weren't training at the highest level all the time.

“So he's in a good place in terms of what his body can cope with at the moment. We'll see how that transfers throughout the season and take it from there but there's definitely no start or end point with that, it's just something we'll monitor.”