By John Harrington

Ray Connellan is looking forward to pulling on a Westmeath jersey again.

The talented footballer had two stints in the AFL over the course of three years with St. Kilda and then Essendon, but is now home for good and studying a degree in Arts, English, and Geography in UCD.

He hasn’t joined up with the Westmeath panel as of yet because he’s focusing on UCD’s Sigerson Cup campaign, but hopes to make a return to inter-county duty in the New Year.

“I've been speaking to (Westmeath manager) Jack (Cooney) quite a bit,” said Connellan today at the launch the 2020 Electric Ireland Higher Education GAA Championships.

“I had initially said I'd go back in early. But then the more I looked at it I was really enjoying my College Football and settling into life again here.

“I just wasn't in the right head-space to give the level of commitment that's needed for inter-county football.

“I would have felt I was cheating everyone by going back in and not really actually wanting to be there 100 per cent. So I spoke to Jack about it and we've had a great dialogue about it over the last few months. He's been so understanding of my situation coming back home and getting settled back in.

“I just said, look, I want to give Sigerson a real good crack and really have a go at it. Then after the Sigerson is done we'll have a conversation about going back in with Westmeath which is what most likely I'll end up back doing.

“I took the bus over here this morning from the south side and you come up by Croke Park. Having not played there in so long, I would just love to get back in there.

“It's been three or four years now since I've played so I'm really looking forward to getting back in playing at that standard again. Definitely something I'm eager to get going with again.”

Connellan enjoyed his AFL experience in Australia and believes it benefited him as a person as well as a sportsman, but is now looking forward to focusing on gaelic football for the first time in quite a while and maximising his potential in the sport.

“It's been nearly four years now if not more since I actually got a clean run of it,” he said.

“I'm not going anywhere, I've nowhere to be. It was always a case of living one life here and one in Australia and they never really interacted. Now it's actually just that I'm here playing football in College and back with my mates again.

“It just seems that things are starting to move on again. Whereas when you're living abroad and every six months you're hopping between the two countries, you find like things at home can get left on the back-burner.

“It's really nice to be home and settled back in. I'm really, really enjoying it.”

UCD were handed the always tough tie of a clash with University of Ulster in today’s Sigerson Cup draw, but Connellan is hopeful the Dubliners will challenge strongly for a competition they last won in 2018.

“We have University of Ulster at home, thankfully, because it's always very difficult to go away to play the Ulster teams up there because they're always so strong, especially at home.

“So hopefully we can take them out of their comfort zone a little bit. We just have to make sure that we're all in order ourselves and that we can hopefully get a result.

“Fingers crossed we can be competitive. It's probably a younger side than most Sigerson teams, I would say, just by looking at the demographic of our team.

“But, yeah, I would hope that we'll be, as UCD traditionally are, a strong footballing side.

“We had a poor League but lads were away with clubs and stuff but certainly over the last three or four weeks things have really started to pick up and our training sessions have improved and you can see things clicking a little bit.

“That's the way the Sigerson is, teams that are good during the League aren't always as good during the Sigerson Cup and vice versa. Weh you get lads together and they train together more and more then you get used to each other.

“Fingers crossed, that's what we need, to just gel and come together.”