Former Offaly senior footballer Brian Connor has no short-term plans to return home from America to play for the Faithful County again.

Connor, a son of 1982 winning captain Richie, has been in New York since 2013 and will line out for the New York County football team in Sunday’s Connacht SFC Preliminary Round match against Roscommon at Gaelic Park. Offaly manager Pat Flanagan tried to persuade him to return home, but for now at least Connor is happier Stateside.

“I was in touch with him at the start of the season but I made it clear I’m out here for a long time now,” said Connor. “I said I wouldn’t be back this year or the next couple of years. He was very understanding. If I did go home, I would obviously love to play with Offaly but I have no plans in going home any time soon.

“I work in a bar in the city. I like the lifestyle out here. I made a decision to stay out here. The economy was the real reason why I decided to come out here. I was out of college and in and out of jobs so that’s why I came out here. I’ve loved it out here since then. It wasn’t anything to do with the set-up or anything. It was just the way work it has gone. If I was home I would definitely love to play with Offaly.”

Offaly have been making steady progress since Flanagan took charge of the team last year and Connor admits the choice to come home would be a more attractive one were the Faithful County to continue to improve.

“Yeah, you would have to imagine it would change the circumstances. I’d love to be competing at that level. Football in Offaly has dipped over the last decade or so but they’re making good strides and I still keep in touch with a lot of the players. I’d be good friends with a lot of them. They were close to being promoted from Division 3 this year. I’ve been keeping an eye on them. They only lost out on points difference to Clare and they end up winning Division 3. The last time I was home they were in Division 4 so they could have been in Division 2 with them (Roscommon) coming here. It would change things if they were competing for things like they used to.”

For now at least Connor is fully committed to New York, and is hopeful they can put up a good show against Roscommon on Sunday.

“Training has gone very well," he says. "Justin (O’Halloran) and Johnny (Duane) are really pushing it. We’re just unlucky we don’t have many games. That was the one advantage (last year). Cavan came out for two good games last year, which was a big help. We can’t do any more than we did. We had a couple of in-house games and went down to Philly and played them. The work is done. It’s just about showing up now on the day.”