Mark O’Connor is set to line out for Dingle in their All-Ireland Club SFC semi-final against Ballyboden St Enda’s on January 3.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was feared that O\u2019Connor\u2019s return to Australia after his club’s dramatic Munster final win over St Finbarr\u2019s would deprive the Kerry champions of his services for the last-four game. The talismanic midfielder had returned to pre-season training with his AFL club Geelong with the season Down Under due to commence in early March.<\/p>\n
However, just weeks after flying back to Australia, O\u2019Connor appears to have received permission from Geelong to play in the semi-final, just like he did for the Kerry and Munster campaigns.<\/p>\n
O’Connor is set to return home on Christmas Eve. It\u2019s the Christmas present that all in Dingle wanted as the minor All-Ireland winner has given some sterling performances for his boyhood club in both the Kerry SFC and the Munster SFC.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Manager P\u00e1draig Corcoran had indicated after the Munster final win that he expected the talented 28-year-old to be back in Australia by the time the All-Ireland semi-finals came around.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is extremely difficult on Mark because he is contracted to play with Geelong and they are all back for pre-season, and I am not so sure how that would work out in terms of getting him back to Ireland,\u201d said Corcoran at the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It is believed Geelong based the decision on the service O’Connor has given the AFL club and the leadership he has shown to the Cats.<\/p>\n
Dingle, understandably, are keeping a low profile and did not comment when contacted, but it would be a major surprise if O\u2019Connor does not line out against the Dublin and Leinster champions.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mark O’Connor is set to line out for Dingle in their All-Ireland Club SFC semi-final against Ballyboden St…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":207478,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[4365,6937,61,60,112],"class_list":["post-207477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-gaelic-football","tag-kerry-gaa","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}