HOME AND AWAY

The former Limavady midfielder was a key player for the Bannsiders in the first half of last season, but departed following the League Cup Final and having enjoyed his time Down Under, is now ready to return to action.

“I’ve been doing a bit of fitness work on my own in preparation for coming back,” he told Times Sport.

“So I’d hope it’d only be another couple of weeks before I can get back into contention, but it’s not really up to me. Oran, Trevor and Wes will decide when I’m ready.

“It’s been a year since I last played for Coleraine and I can’t wait to get started again.”

Tommons clearly enjoyed his time Down Under, so much so that he is weighing up a return some time in the future.

“I’d probably say that the last year has been the best experience of my life,” he said.

“I had a great time travelling around Australia seeing the sights, the weather is fantastic and travelling around the country, working, seeing the sights and going to the beaches is hard to beat.

“The cold weather is taking a bit of getting used to but it’s good to be back home.

“I only really decided about three weeks ago to come back and get a few things sorted out here, but I enjoyed my time out there so much I could definitely see myself going back in the future.”

Although he clearly enjoyed the Australian lifestyle, his old teammates on the other side of he world were never far from Tommons’ thoughts over the past year.

“Obviously I kept in touch with the lads while I was away, particularly ‘Owensy’ and Stevie, and I followed the games every week and watched the highlights online when I could,” he revealed.

“At the start of the season, I really thought we could be league title contenders. The first two or three months things seemed to be going really well and we were rarely out of the top two or three in the league.

“Then over the last couple of months results have dropped off a bit, but I see no reason why we can’t get back to the sort of form we showed at the start of the season, or around this time last season when we went on a good winning run.”