Sydney coach Paul Roos is confident Irishman Tadhg Kennelly still has plenty to offer the club after agreeing to return to the AFL next season.

Kennelly left the club in 2009 as he chased a long-cherished dream of winning an All-Ireland Gaelic football title with County Kerry - a feat he accomplished in his first season.

But as he was never delisted by the Swans, he's eligible to return directly to Sydney and informed the club on Friday morning that he would be looking to sign a two-year deal on his return.

The 28-year-old, though, was plagued by a succession of knee and shoulder injuries in his initial 158-game stint at the club.

But Roos says the year away from AFL football has served Kennelly well and insists the likable Irishman would not have agreed to return unless he can make a positive contribution to the team.

"When I saw him in Ireland (in September) I was really pleasantly surprised," Roos said of Kennelly.

"He looked fantastic, he looked really healthy and when I watched him play he didn't have any tape on and he said himself he was feeling a million dollars and he was running really well."

"So I think the year off playing Gaelic football, which is predominantly a non contact game, has certainly done him the world of good."

"And I know Tadhg well enough to know that he wouldn't decide to come back ... and that was one of the reasons he left because he felt, as well as the family things, he felt he couldn't give us what he really wanted to give us in (2009)."

"So obviously he feels now that his body's really recovered and he really feels like he can contribute to the club again."

Kennelly will touch down in Sydney next week and resume training almost immediately.

Roos, who had a gut feeling the Irishman would return following a lengthy phone conversation a fortnight ago, revealed Kennelly wrestled with the decision for several days.

"The things that wanted to keep him in Ireland were his family and it's obviously where he grew up, and the things to bring him back into Australia were the professionalism of AFL football and I guess the sun and Bondi," he said.

"I can see how extraordinarily hard it would have been for him to make the decision to come back."

Kennelly's return completes a successful off-season recruitment drive for the Swans leaving Roos upbeat heading into his final year at the helm.

"We've obviously lost some quality with Hally (Barry Hall) and Mick (Michael O'Loughlin) and Leo Barry and Crouchy (Jared Crouch), so we've lost some real quality players at the top end," Roos said.

"But what we've been able to do is get some young kids in and with (Daniel) Bradshaw and Tadhg we haven't lost as much experience as we would have had they not come back so that's pretty important for us as well."

"We've always been competitive and I think that's been my main goal over the last eight years even last year we were really competitive bringing young players into the team."

"I think what we did towards the end of last year hopefully will have a significant impact going into next year."

"We know we've got (to close) a big gap to get back into the eight and get back into the top four but we'll work as hard as we can and we've got some quality players from other clubs through the trade week and obviously Tadhg coming back helps us in that regard as well."