World Footy News

The Sydney Swans' Brendan Murphy has decided to give up his AFL dream, just days after writing in his column on the Irish-Australian news site the Irish Echo that he would continue in 2010. We recently reported his decision to stay, but note that the Swans have announced his change of heart and his article has been removed from the Irish Echo website (although it is still available from Google's cache).

20 year old Murphy played 25 games for Sydney's reserves in his two years Down Under but was restricted by injury. With a large turnover of players expected at the Swans over the off-season it looked like 2010 would be a great chance for Murphy to break into the AFL side.

Murphy stated that, “It wasn’t an easy decision to make but it has been a frustrating year with injuries and I feel as a consequence I’ve lost the drive and passion to play AFL".

It would appear as though the Irish experiment is now at best settling into a low level steady state with less than a dozen players on AFL lists at any one time, and only two or three getting regular senior matches at best. Homesickness and injuries appear to be as big hurdles as learning the new skills required.