Kennelly and McDonnell prepared for last hurrah

TWO OF Ireland’s best international footballers over the past 10 years will play their last Test tomorrow in Gold Coast’s Metricon Stadium.

Both Kerry’s Tadhg Kennelly, who retired from the Sydney Swans as the only GAA export to win a premiership medal, and Armagh’s Steven McDonnell, were significant contributors to the record victory last Friday in Melbourne.

But with the next series not expected until 2013, neither will still be around and so take their curtain call tomorrow. Kennelly has been enormously valuable to Ireland, as he understands so well both constituent games in the international hybrid – to the extent that he crowned a sabbatical year in 2009 with an All-Ireland medal for Kerry and an All Star.

His engine and ability to read the opposition made him elusive and penetrative in possession and at one stage in the first Test he managed to hop the ball around one side of an opponent while running around the other himself.

One of the reasons Stephen Cluxton’s captaincy and his unwillingness to talk to the media was so controversial was that, in Kennelly, Ireland had an obvious candidate, who would have been at home with both sets of reporters during the series.

McDonnell is Ireland’s top scorer in the history of International Rules, having passed the three-digit mark last week with his record Test score of 18 and he has one further chance tomorrow to increase on his total of 107.

“It’ll be sad that I’m pulling on the Irish jersey for the last time,” he said here on the Gold Coast, “but over the years I’ve been privileged and proud to have pulled it on. A lot of players go through their career and don’t get that opportunity and I’m grateful that I’ve had it.

“Certainly, while I will be disappointed it’ll be the last time, all I want is to get a result and go out on a high and not on a low. We’ve put ourselves in a good position to do that and I hope we can back it up on Friday night.

“Performance-wise, it’s up there as one of the best,” he said of last week’s display.

“I know we beat the Australians in the first Test back in 2004 by a big total, but I don’t think it was as much as 44 points. Looking back on the game, we did all the basic things that needed to be done by a Gaelic footballer right.

“We got our kick-passing correct, we moved the ball at speed and I suppose the most important thing is we finished off our chances while we had them. If you look back to last year, that’s where we fell short. We kicked a lot of one-pointers then whereas this time around we only had maybe four or five one-pointers for the whole game. We just had more success in front of goal.”

Kennelly was more relieved about stepping out of the fray after a long career in Australia that began when he came over as a teenager in 1999 to join the Sydney Swans.

“It’ll be emotional, yeah, but I probably won’t miss it because my body has taken a battering. I was offered a contract by the Swans, but I delayed it and delayed it because I knew the game goes for 120 minutes and in the last 20 minutes it was really killing me.

“I’ve no cartilage in my right knee. I’ve had three surgeries on it now. I feel fine now because this (International Rules) is a 72-minute game and it doesn’t bother me at all. A 120-minute game for 24 weeks, and you have to train hard, is a big load.

“When you come to an end you want to keep it going forever. You can’t be a footballer forever.”

Between them, Kennelly and McDonnell have featured in 12 international series and both are big supporters of the concept, Kennelly frequently heard on Australian media doing promotion for the Tests and McDonnell concerned at the current state of uncertainty that surrounds the game and threatens its prospects.

“I would be hugely disappointed. I think it would take away the opportunity for a lot of players coming up through the ranks to represent their country. I’ve been involved in six series now and every time I pull on the Irish jersey I feel very proud and it’s a massive thing.

“If you ask any of the players who made their debut the other night how they felt when they lined up for the national anthem they’d say it was in their top list of achievements to date. I would still feel it has a good future.”