"I knew when I went away (to the 2011 Asia Cup) that the club might sign other players,"
Kilkenny said. "They wanted cover for me and it sounded like a new midfielder had been on the manager's mind for a while anyway.
"Whatever happened, I wanted to come back and do what I've been doing for three years – play regularly and play well.
"I'm not a new signing but if I can lift the squad in any way then I will. I said before I left that we had a great chance of getting into the play-offs and that hasn't changed too much. We'll need a good run of results to do it, but we're more than capable and thought so at the start of the season – even if I wasn't prepared to say it in public."
"You never know where football will take you so I'm not assuming anything," he said, "but the experience (in Qatar) was fantastic.
"Everything around it was new to me – the pressure of a major international tournament and the pressure building up to the final. We were one of the top sides there, so people expected us to do well.
"The difference with the Olympics was that I went there expecting to play. I was told that I'd play and it didn't happen. With the Asian Cup, I was surprised to be in the squad in the first place. I knew I'd have my work cut out to play at all and to appear in four games made it a big success. I liked the coaching staff and they seemed happy enough with me. I hope I made a decent impression on them.
"They had some really talented players over there – not all household names in England – but guys with good pedigrees.
"There's a defender called Sasa Ognenovski who plays in Korea and won the Asian version of the Champions League. People here might not have heard of him, but he's a quality player. A lot of the lads play in top leagues across the world. You don't walk into the Australian team.
"If going to the Asian Cup means that I'm considered for the World Cup qualifiers at the end of the year then that's all I'm looking for at the moment. I'm still at the stage where I need to think game by game and go from there."
"I've got four months left and if I do go at the end of the season then want I'd like to go out in the best possible way," he said. "All I want is to be involved as much as possible and to make the most of the position we're in.
"Getting ourselves promoted would be a huge achievement, but I'm sure we can do it. To be perfectly honest, at the start of the season I thought we had a massive chance of going up. I played things down, and so did everyone else, but that's what I was thinking.
"The squad is talented and the players are hungry. You can see the hunger week after week. Something special could happen here, which isn't to say that it definitely will. But the chance is there."
http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/leedsunited/Leeds-United-Talent-and-hunger.6711232.jp
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