{"id":631967,"date":"2026-08-11T16:53:29","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T16:53:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/631967\/"},"modified":"2026-08-11T16:53:29","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T16:53:29","slug":"kobe-mcdonald-on-his-afl-move-i-could-never-say-no-never-turn-it-down-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/631967\/","title":{"rendered":"Kobe McDonald on his AFL move: \u2018I could never say no, never turn it down\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/kobe-mcdonald\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/kobe-mcdonald\">Kobe McDonald<\/a> says the chance to become a professional athlete was too good to turn down. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In his first interview with St Kilda\u2019s in-house YouTube channel, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/mayo-gaa\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/mayo-gaa\">Mayo<\/a> man says the offer of a Category B Rookie contract provided him with the opportunity to pursue a career as a full-time athlete.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cI\u2019ve always dreamed of being a professional athlete,\u201d says the 18-year-old.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cSo, when St Kilda gave me the opportunity, I could never say no, never turn it down. Test my skills, test new things and meet new people, it\u2019s very exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">McDonald\u2019s parents have travelled to Australia to help him settle in Down Under.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cIt\u2019s a lot easier when they\u2019re here,\u201d he adds. \u201cIt was hard saying goodbye as it is, it would have been a lot harder if I was saying goodbye to both of them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cIt makes it very easy to settle in when you are going home to them and not home to people you don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">It has been a remarkable few weeks since he helped Mayo win Sam Maguire for the first time since 1951.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cIt\u2019s been a whirlwind, I suppose. It\u2019s been a long time at home, 75 years since we won it. Always dreamed of winning the it and it\u2019s extra special to win it alongside my brother. On the day, I was very emotional, very overwhelmed and probably never cried as much in all my life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kobe McDonald says the chance to become a professional athlete was too good to turn down. In his&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":631968,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[76],"tags":[267072,18,19,17,165046,26710,132],"class_list":["post-631967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-australian-rules","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kobe-mcdonald","tag-mayo-gaa","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117077921619212406","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631967","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=631967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/631968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}