GIVEN the amount of time Conor McKenna has spent in Ireland in recent months, you can probably forgive the Essendon defender for forgetting which sport he was playing last week.

McKenna's 'solo' in the third term of Sunday's win over Adelaide – when the dashing backman kicked the ball to himself in the middle of the ground while on a run and set up an Essendon goal – once again made the highlight reels.

And again the question of whether the mini-kick counted as a bounce reared its head.

For the record, it doesn't.

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League rules state that players must bounce or touch the ball on the ground once every 15 metres, irrespective of whether they are running in a straight line or otherwise.

It continues: "For the purposes of this law, a player shall be deemed to be in possession of the football during the period when the player handballs the football to themselves and regains possession without the football touching the ground."

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It also applies to a player kicking the ball to himself as McKenna did against the Crows last Sunday, and has done several times before in his Essendon career. 

But you can see where the Irishman might have been a little confused about the rules, with different regulations applying in the Gaelic game and the International Rules Series.

In the Gaelic competition, players are permitted to take unlimited bounces and 'toe taps' (what they call a solo or player kicking the ball to themselves) but have to bounce or toe tap the ball every four steps.

However, they are not permitted to take two consecutive bounces without having a toe tap in between.

In International Rules Series games – an amalgamated version of the Gaelic and Australian codes where McKenna has represented Ireland in the past – players must bounce the round ball every 10 metres but can only bounce it twice.

However, they are able to toe tap it as many times as they want to cover more ground.

McKenna gathered the ball at half-back against the Crows, quickly bounced and then split up his (perhaps longer than allowed) run with his solo, before completing the move with two more bounces and a long kick into attack.

The 24-year-old has been back to Ireland three times since the end of last year and will weigh up at the end of this year whether he leaves the AFL to head home permanently.