Fifteen years have passed since a skinny and scared Irishman sat alone in the cafe at the Sydney Football stadium waiting for his first professional Australian Rules training session to start.
Today, Tadhg Kennelly has little in common with that timid youth. Although he is retired from the Sydney Swans, he retains a muscular frame and beams widely when he reflects on a career that boomeranged from Ireland to Australia and back again.
“I was so scared. I felt this huge pressure on my shoulders, I couldn’t fathom failure. I was representing Kerry and Listowel coming to Australia, I felt I had to make it work no matter what.”
After finishing his career in Australia in 2011, Kennelly started working as an international ambassador for the AFL, searching for the best talent available globally.
The numbers of international success stories in the AFL are relatively limited, but those that have enjoyed long and storied careers like Kennelly keep giving clubs the incentive to make huge financial outlays to source talent from Ireland in the hope that their numbers will come up.
Exclusive club
Kennelly is a member of an exclusive club in Australia, he has a Premiership winner’s medal in his cabinet, giving him special status, even in a rugby league crazed town like Sydney. He nods politely to people who recognise him in the cafe and remembers how hard the journey to success was for him in the AFL.
“It was brutally hard at times. I cried myself to sleep many times. You come from a place where you’re treated like a god. In Kerry when you do well as a minor, that’s what defines you, your ability in Gaelic football. . . I found myself so far from home in Sydney unable to play this new game and everything that had defined and comforted me was gone.”
Kennelly arrived in Sydney in 1999. He wrote long letters to his family friends and relied on a heavily worn payphone card for precious calls home. In his desire to adapt to the Australian code, his knuckles were red raw and his body battered from hours of extra training. Gradual improvement at the oval ball was still accompanied by loneliness every time he returned home to an empty flat after training.
Kennelly wants to give new Irish imports a better launch pad than he had. Athletic skill isn’t the defining factor whether Irish youngsters make a long career in the AFL.
“There are things that we need to put in place. Simple, basic things that can help. The talent is there in Ireland to make it over here . . . but that counts for nothing if we don’t make sure they have the right support networks in place to give them every chance of succeeding.”
Outside of Kennelly, Sean Wight and Jim Stynes, the long -term success stories of Irishmen in the AFL are limited. Kennelly wants to give the ones that try more than a fighting chance. He puts in place regular flights for family members to visit and introduces new arrivals into an Irish network that will support them.
Social network
“If you have a guy who is happy off the field, I promise you his football will be better. We do lots of things, whether it’s getting them Irish food, like Barry’s Tea or just getting them involved in a social network. Player welfare was something that wasn’t really thought of when I started, but it’s something we needed to address specifically with young Irish players.”
Kennelly speaks highly of two young Irish recruits Pádraig Lucey of the Geelong Cats and Paddy Brophy who has joined the West Coast Eagles.
Both young men have shown huge promise and support is available to them. Kennelly used to ring Jim Stynes for contract advise regularly and is fully willing to act as an unofficial mentor to any Irish footballer.
Before Kennelly, the process of attracting young Gaelic players for the AFL was conducted through speculative training camps run by agents. Kennelly has put in place official recruitment combines endorsed by the AFL where the GAA is informed exactly when and where they are taking place.
Kennelly’s European combine at DCU in December took place in full view. He returned to Ireland and the GAA in 2009 to win an All-Ireland with Kerry. So does he have any guilt about taking players away from their counties?
“All I want to do is give these young players options. . . The first thing I say to young players at a combine is you have a very slim chance of making it in the AFL, the better option is probably to stay in Ireland, play for your county and live a very happy and fulfilled life. However, there will be those kids who stick their fingers up at me and say ‘no, I’m going to make it, this is what I want’. They will be in a minority, and those are the guys you want.”
Kennelly lives in the beachside Sydney suburb of Coogee with his Australian wife. Despite the blue skies and sunshine, he says the greatest shock to Irish arrivals is the hardness of the nation’s character, specifically in sport.
“It is a nation of winners. When you play professional sport here, it’s ruthless. You are marking a guy who is playing for his livelihood, he will think nothing of breaking you in half to win a game. He has everything on the line as do you. You have to be ready to sacrifice everything.”
