{"id":596436,"date":"2026-07-21T08:14:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T08:14:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/596436\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T08:14:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T08:14:13","slug":"andy-moran-kobe-mcdonald-has-an-option-other-than-prospective-aussie-rules-career-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/596436\/","title":{"rendered":"Andy Moran: Kobe McDonald has an option other than prospective Aussie Rules career \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mayo<\/a> manager Andy Moran<\/a> says he will continue to make it clear to teenage prodigy Kobe McDonald<\/a> that there is an \u201cother option\u201d to his prospective AFL career with St Kilda, even as the clock ticks down towards Sunday\u2019s All-Ireland final against Kerry<\/a>, which could turn out to be the last game that the Crossmolina attacker plays for his home county.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Pat Spillane suggested that some \u201cwealthy Mayo businessmen\u201d should try to find a way to keep McDonald at home, but Moran said that \u201cKobe would have no problem with that, that\u2019s a given\u201d and that \u201cit\u2019s the professional athlete point of view\u201d that is the lure drawing him to Melbourne, Australia.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m never going to talk a young fella out of doing that, it\u2019s his choice,\u201d Moran said last week.<\/p>\n

\u201cWill I put the other option in play? Of course you will, of course you\u2019re trying to do that. But I have a great relationship with his dad [Ciar\u00e1n], an unbelievable relationship with his dad. And I\u2019m very grateful for them to play this year at senior football and we\u2019re just absolutely delighted to have the young kid.<\/p>\n

\u201cCiar\u00e1n is a very straightforward sort of guy, he will do everything for his boy and he\u2019s dead right. My job is to accommodate them the best I can and help them along.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mayo boss did correct the record when it came to being quoted as saying that St Kilda were \u201cbrilliant\u201d, saying instead that \u201cwhat I mean is, they\u2019re very open. I\u2019d rather if they left him alone, but they\u2019re very open to conversation. We\u2019d love him to play for Mayo now for 10 years and more, I think all football would love him to stay.<\/p>\n

\u201cKobe, for example, would be the top assister on our team. He plays with a freedom, we\u2019re watching the World Cup and all the fellas that are lighting it up are playing with a freedom.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you go to a concert and you see your favourite band, they\u2019re expressing themselves, they\u2019re enjoying themselves and they\u2019re putting a show out there. That\u2019s what sport and football and entertainment is about. For me, the young fellas have really brought that to our group.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayo manager Andy Moran says he will continue to make it clear to teenage prodigy Kobe McDonald that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":596437,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[76],"tags":[10416,167029,1128,18,19,17,165046,26710,132],"class_list":["post-596436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-kerry-gaa","tag-andy-moran","tag-australia","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kobe-mcdonald","tag-mayo-gaa","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116956971878840073","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/596437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}