Tommy Walsh recalled again to Kerry squad

AS the new Kerry senior football squad gets ready to start training next week in Currans Tommy Walsh is among a batch of new (and returning) players to be called up by the new management.

Walsh won an All-Ireland senior medal in 2009 before heading to the Australian Football League that winter to start an AFL career with St Kilda and then Sydney Swans.

Bedevilled by injury, Walsh returned to Ireland in late 2014 and was brought into the Kerry panel at the start of 2015, but he withdrew from the squad ahead of the 2016 Championship, frustrated with a lack of game time through the League.

Walsh will be joined at Kerry training next week by Kerins O’Rahillys club mate Gavin O’Brien, who impressed as a wing-forward in the recent county championship.

Other new faces expected to join what will be a working and open-ended squad include Shane and Mark Ryan from Rathmore, Jack Sherwood, Jonathan Lyne and Dara Moynihan. David Shaw and Michael Potts from Dr Crokes are also understood to have been contacted, but Dr Crokes All-Ireland semi-final preparations could curtail their involvement in the short-term.

Fionn Fitzgerald, Dáithí Casey, Barry John Keane and Ronan Shanahan are excluded from pre-season plans, although Mark Griffin is still part of the panel going forward, contrary to what was reported last week.