Tommy Walsh's club manager says the former Young Footballer of the Year will need time to readjust to intercounty football.

Walsh made his return to club action over the weekend and his Kerin's O'Rahillys manager Barry O'Shea is asking Kerry supporters to be patient and allow him time to acclimatise himself to gaelic football again:

"Kerry supporters are extremely tough and are very hard on their players and that comes from years and years of having top class players. That has its positives too because it keeps the players under pressure all the time but fans will have to be realistic," O'Shea notes in The Irish Examiner.

"Turning up supremely fit is not enough, and Tommy will have to get a run of games and training, and being back in the Kerry environment, with top players and it will come, slowly.

"Kerry fans must not be critical of Tommy because they could well be eulogising him later on in the summer, if not in February and March. He did have a back problem on Saturday night, after picking up a knock training with Kerry so he probably wasn't going at full tilt so Tommy will be huge asset to club and county for many years to come.

"He needs time for his touch to come back, and nuances of the game that perhaps five years ago came naturally to him, he has probably lost. People think that Aussie Rules is the same game but it is a totally different sport really. He has to train his brain and his body, to play a professional game for the past five years in Australia but now he has to reverse the process, reboot his gaelic football brain to get used to a different game, with different rules and played with a different shaped ball."

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