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WHILE there will be hordes of Kerry fans in Croke Park on Sunday, there will also be many thousands watching on TVs all over the world.

One man who will have a special interest in the game is former Kerry star Tommy Walsh, who is currently playing Australian Rules with Sydney Swans.

Tommy turned in a superb performance back in the 2008 quarter-final, scoring 0-3 in Kerry’s 1-21 to 1-16 win.

TraleeToday.ie spoke to the Tralee man on the phone during the week and asked him if be thinks – like his old Kerins O’Rahilly’s team-mate Barry O’Shea wrote in his column this week (click here) – it’ll be another shootout between two traditional footballing teams.

“The last time we played them in the championship it was like that. You have two good footballing teams and that’s how it could look again. But I think Kerry should beat them. The Kerry forward line is playing very, very well and there’s a couple of good guys to come off the bench, so hopefully they’ll get through and into another semi-final. Anything can happen from there,” he said.

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So will he stay up and watch the match?

“They show it over here on free-to-air TV but there’s a delay of an hour for some reason, so I’ll have to turn off the phone and stay away from Twitter for a while,” said Tommy, who is also studying for a post-grad in Commerce while with the Swans.

I also asked him how the playing career is going down under.

“The seniors are flying so it’s hard enough to break into the first team, but I’ve been playing well enough for the past couple of weeks. You never know what’ll happen so I’ll just hang in there.”

Tommy is currently in the last year of his contract with the Swans so, who knows, he could be going for a place in our prolific forward line himself next year if he decides to come back…

• Don’t miss TraleeToday.ie next week for Tommy’s memories of the Rose of Tralee Festival