Yesterday the club announced the delisting of Aisake O’hAilpin, while rookie Michael Shields returned to Ireland in July after less than a year with the club.
O’hAilpin, 23, is the younger brother of Setanta, 25, and was elevated to the senior list at the end of the 2007 season but failed to play a senior game during his time at the club.
However Icke said the club may sign another Irish recruit in the near future and are considering Cork’s Ciaran Sheehan and Zach Tuohy from Laois, who has already completed a trial with the club.
“We keep in regular contact with Zach,” Icke said.
“He’s doing an AFL program back in Ireland and hopefully diligently working to that program. He’s keeping us updated. He sends us DVDs of his games. We’ve also got Ciaran Sheehan very much on our radar. When the time comes we’ll make a decision on one or either of those boys.”
However he admitted that the decision to delist the younger of the O’hAilpin brothers was a disappointing one to have to make.
“When you put four years into a kid, and we all saw his athletic potential, we were just hoping that his football potential would come on a bit quicker,” Icke said.
“There was never any issue with his athleticism. It was more just his game understanding where we needed to see a bit more development.”
Icke said that O’hAilpin had not indicated to the club whether he planned to pursue his AFL career by nominating for the pre-season draft.
“Because he’s still in Ireland I haven’t got to speak to him. He’s not due back for a week or so. The phone call was made to him yesterday morning by [coach] Brett [Ratten] which I wasn’t there for. Until he comes back I’m not sure what his intentions are.”
The career of O’hAilpin's older brother Setanta was also looking questionable last week with the club conceding that they had received some interest from other clubs during the trade period. However Icke was adamant that with one year still on his contract, Setanta would play a big role for the club in 2009.
“We’re looking forward to him making a full recovery from his injury (hamstring) and being able to play on big forwards next year.
"If you look at our list, we need a player that can play on the big power forwards and Setanta can do that.
"He’s due back in Melbourne tomorrow where he’ll meet with our medical people and we’ll work out where he’s at.”
