News round-up Kilmacud Crokes and Dublin midfielder Darren Magee is set to spend the next 12 months in Australia. His departure is scheduled for next week after Saturday's Leinster club championship match against Westmeath's Garrycastle.

Crokes manager Mick Dillon is resigned to losing the player. "At the moment I'm not entirely sure because it's still a bit up in the air but he's due to go next week for 12 months along with a group of his pals and to be honest I can't blame him if that's what he wants to do now that he's finished college and has a bit of time on his hands.

"It's no different to what Alan Brogan did last year except he didn't have a club campaign ongoing. But it would be hard for Darren to find a better time to go away from his point of view. He'd be a big loss to us but having said that there's nothing worse than pushing someone into staying around if he wants to go."

The departure of Magee, who wasn't available for comment, would be very disruptive for both club and county. He has been in good form with Kilmacud as they took the Dublin title in the final against Ballyboden and defeated St Patrick's from Wicklow in the Leinster first round.

Dublin aren't flush with midfielders and Magee (22) has the greatest potential of the available options given the perennial debate over Ciarán Whelan's best position and the wait for Declan O'Mahoney to emerge at senior level.

Were Magee to rediscover the best form of his intercounty career, which helped the county to their last Leinster title, he would be a major asset although in common with most of the county team he was well below par in the All-Ireland quarter-final defeat by Kerry.

Dillon says that Magee's performance that day in August is a distortion given that the player was battling illness. On his day the player is capable of an intense, physical performance with his stamina sustaining the effort over 70 minutes.

The Kilmacud manager is, however, making the best of the likely loss. "It's not great for us but at least it's an area where we have some cover. Liam McBarron is playing wing forward for us and he's someone who's played at midfield in an All-Ireland semi-final (with Fermanagh). But we don't know whether this will affect us or not because if we lose to Garrycastle on Saturday it's irrelevant."

Magee's absence would come at a critical time for Dublin. With a new manager due to be appointed next week, the player will miss the chance of making an early impression.

But given that Brian Mullins, the clear favourite for the Dublin position, is Head of Sport at UCD where Magee has been studying the two men won't be strangers to each other.

Although there is no suggestion of an Australian Rules influence on Magee's plans to travel Down Under, Dillon believes that but for his age - no Irish footballer has adapted to the oval ball as comparatively late in his career as 22 - the player would be well suited to Rules.

"He's made for that game. Physically he's very strong and has a huge engine but his age would probably tell against him at this stage."

Meanwhile, Kilmacud and Garrycastle renew the Dublin-Westmeath rivalry from the summer.

On that day back in June Magee started at centre forward but was eventually switched to centrefield where he came up against David O'Shaughnessy who will again contest the middle with him on Saturday.

Given the Westmeath man's form last week this will be a big challenge - by the looks of it Magee's last for a while.