Kelm keeps himself ticking over with Oz dream on hold
RIGHT now, Australian Rules football teams are living inside their own bubbles, trying to stay in quarantine and getting the season completed.
Thoughts of recruitment are far from their minds, leaving Fermanagh youngster Ultan Kelm in a bizarre sporting limbo.
Thebelleekmanwassettotry out at a ‘Combine’ trial series in April before the coronavirus pandemic reached these shores. Obviously, that fell by the wayside. Priorities have turned to getting games played, and the trail, for scouts and hopeful proteges, has run cold.
But still, Kelm refuses to give up on his huge ambition to make it as a professional athlete on the other side of the world. Since March, he has barely had the Aussie Rules Sherrin football out of his hands.
“After the first time when I got the call to go out to the initial trial, the first thing I done was buy a ball,” he says.
“There are a few of them knocking about the house now. Obviously it is a completely different technique for kicking the ball and holding it, bouncing it is completely different.
“But I think I am coming on rightly at it. I had a skills session in Dublin to show the progress I am making before the lockdown.”
Everything is up in the air. Kelm studies Architectural Engineering in Ulster University Jordanstown, but that is switching to remote learning.
For spare cash, he has been making the short journey from Belleek to work in the Great Northern Hotel in the holiday town of Bundoran.
The south Donegal venue has been enjoying a real throwback to its halcyon days as staycationers from all over Ireland have flocked there.
The hotel is owned by the legendary Donegal football figure Brian Mceniff, and Kelm occasionally bumps into him.
“He would be tipping about a lot. He knows his stuff! He has some involvement every year. It is just mad, the passion he has for it,” he says.
At present, his club Erne Gaels have not got off to the best possible start to the league, hampered in a huge way by an ongoing groin injury that Kelm is nursing back to full health.
“I was doing a lot of training over lockdown and I had it last year and felt it was sorted, but it is a tricky injury to get around. It takes a lot of work to get running the right way and if I am running the wrong way, I am getting pain coming through my groin,” he states.
“I have been used to it for a while but needed that bit of a break to get it right. It’s getting there now. I didn’t want to risk the first few league games back as I didn’t want to make it any worse.
“We have Kinawley now in the Championship in a couple of weeks. They have been going well in the league so far, been racking up good scores.”
That’s the priority now. But further down the line he wants to see what he is capable of in the AFL and adds: “I want to leave myself in the best possible place for whatever comes up. Obviously I am optimistic that I want to get out there and I will see what comes up.
“But before anything happens there is still Fermanagh for me to work on and the end of the league. Trying to keep myself active no matter what we’re doing.”
He’s made the most of lockdown and the slower pace of life, trying to brush up on what he perceives as areas in need of improvement.
“I think there was that much free time, I was working on a lot of things,” he reveals.
“I was keeping myself as active as possible. I was trying to improve my ball skills and had a ball in my hand. I spent a lot of time working on my weaker foot.
“But yeah, I was just ticking over and keeping in shape. I suppose you can never get yourself into the perfect shape.
“We all had our programmes to work on, ones that the Fermanagh strength and conditioning coach (Leon Carters) had sent us out.
“But then personally myself, skills were something I felt I had a lot of room for improvement with, so I just had the ball in my hands as much as possible and I was getting over to the pitch often.”
It’s all in the future of course, but he wants to maintain his education if a longer stay in Australia materialises.
“Well, it takes a lot for it to work out in Australia, so you always need something to come back to here if it didn’t work out,” he says. “I am working away at uni now at the minute and you always have the option of continuing it on out there, or going back to where you left it off.”
He adds: “I think most clubs have that policy where they are preparing you for life after the professional game.
“Especially the Irish lads, you always want something to come home to. I think Jordanstown may even have a facility to do your course online a few days a month, just so you have something to fall back on.”