Tommy Walsh made the right call in opting out of the Kerry senior football panel, according to Tomás Ó Se.

Writing in today's Irish Independent, Ó Se acknowledges that it's not a decision that his former team-mate would have taken lightly.

"He's been a patient man to have waited until now," the five-time All-Ireland winner states.

"When you reach the heights he has reached in two sports, you expect a bit more. If it was me, I think I'd be gone before this. There's no way I'd have invested so much trying to win back a jersey I had six or seven years earlier.

"It's been a difficult time for him, but the same Tommy that left for Australia in 2009 did not come home.

"The expectation was high that we'd have another Tadhg Kennelly-type impact from a professional athlete in 2015.

"But you have to factor the injury he suffered into that. He ripped a hamstring off the bone which, for any athlete, is as physically devastating as you get. I don't know if people understand how severe that is. The same injury effectively brought Paul O'Connell's time in rugby to a premature close.

"Australia prides itself on its advancement in sports science and medicine but the surgeon he was dealing with told him it was as bad as he had seen, putting him out for a year. The damage to the confidence can be horrendous.

"Tommy was offered a contract extension but he declined so he could return to Kerry. Putting him into the mix with an All-Ireland-winning team, along with 'Gooch', had the county buzzing. But not everything works out in straight lines."

Ó Se doesn't believe it's the last we have seen of the former Sydney Swans player on the inter-county stage.

"He hasn't looked like he's been enjoying it but that's not his fault or Kerry's. There's a lot of competition among players of his genre around. He's had a fierce journey with injury and now re-adapting that might have floored lesser men.

"He's a big game player, just as his father Seanie was and he'll come back stronger."

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