{"id":649803,"date":"2026-08-21T23:03:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T23:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/649803\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T23:03:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T23:03:12","slug":"kobe-mcdonald-played-role-in-st-kilda-welcome-for-fellow-mayo-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/649803\/","title":{"rendered":"Kobe McDonald Played Role In St Kilda Welcome For Fellow Mayo Star"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Kobe McDonald was this week enlisted by St Kilda to play a special welcoming role to fellow Mayo native Saoirse Lally.<\/p>\n<p>McDonald arrived at the Melbourne-based AFL club earlier this month, after playing an influential role in delivering Mayo&#8217;s first All-Ireland crown in 75 years.<\/p>\n<p>\n        Recommended\n    <\/p>\n<p>                        <a :href=\"https:\/\/www.balls.ie\/gaa\/article.url\" :title=\"article.title\" :aria-label=\"article.title\" class=\"not-prose col-span-2 md:col-span-1 ga-event\" data-category=\"Recommended Article Tracker\" data-action=\"click\" :data-label=\"https:\/\/www.balls.ie\/gaa\/article.url\" :data-value=\"https:\/\/www.balls.ie\/gaa\/article.url\"><\/p>\n<p>                                            <img class=\"aspect-video\" width=\"130\" height=\"73\" :src=\"https:\/\/www.balls.ie\/gaa\/article.image\" :alt=\"'Image for: ' + article.title\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                        <\/a><\/p>\n<p>The teenager&#8217;s absence from the Mayo setup will no doubt be lamented by the Westerners in years to come, but <a href=\"https:\/\/www.balls.ie\/gaa\/kobe-mcdonald-afl-defender-661097\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">McDonald&#8217;s move to Melbourne<\/a> is undoubtedly an exciting one.<\/p>\n<p>The trend of Gaelic footballers making the move down under is one that has grown and grown in recent years, with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.balls.ie\/gaa\/gaa-afl-departures-kobe-mcdonald-660683\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">GAA reportedly exploring options to limit the exodus to Australia<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s certainly hard to think that any previous transfer has captured the public attention quite like Kobe&#8217;s, with the Mayo man&#8217;s youth, All-Ireland-winning prestige, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.balls.ie\/aussie-rules-2\/kobe-mcdonald-ciaran-mcdonald-aussie-run-in-661634\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">cult hero father<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>McDonald does, though, have plenty of compatriots at St Kilda, and this week was enlisted to welcome one to the club&#8217;s first team.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mayo woman to make St Kilda debut<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Mayo&#8217;s Saoirse Lally is set to make her AFLW debut for St Kilda this weekend when they take on the Geelong Cats.<\/p>\n<p>The former Mayo captain made a surprising move down under earlier this year, ultimately being drafted by St Kilda just 15 weeks ago.<\/p>\n<p>She will make her first AFLW appearance against Geelong on Saturday, and Kobe McDonald was involved in the announcement.<\/p>\n<p>McDonald is one of three Irishmen in the club&#8217;s men&#8217;s team, alongside Liam O&#8217;Connell and Eamonn Armstrong.<\/p>\n<p>The three, along with Lally, were filming snippets for the club&#8217;s social media channels earlier this week, when they revealed to the Mayo woman that she would be making her debut this weekend.<\/p>\n<p>St Kilda&#8217;s social media team caught the moment on camera.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"instagram-media\" data-instgrm-captioned=\"\" data-instgrm-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/reel\/DcQDb-OhqZM\/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading\" data-instgrm-version=\"14\" style=\"background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);\">\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>It&#8217;s a heartwarming moment, and was followed by Lally being surprised by her overjoyed teammates.<\/p>\n<p>The idea to enlist the services of the rest of St Kilda&#8217;s Irish contingent was a nice touch, and Lally and Kobe McDonald shared an embrace as Kobe wore the white Mayo kit he wore in last month&#8217;s All-Ireland final.<\/p>\n<p>Lally <a href=\"https:\/\/www.saints.com.au\/news\/2105638\/mayo-star-earns-debut\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">spoke to St Kilda&#8217;s website<\/a> this week, and said the involvement of McDonald and co had made the moment even more special.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>I was honestly so shocked when I found out. Liam, Eamonn and Kobe broke the news to me and at first I didn\u2019t even realise they were talking about me.<\/p>\n<p>I\u00a0can\u2019t\u00a0wait to run out there with the girls this weekend.<\/p>\n<p>Everyone at the club has been so supportive since I arrived and has put so much\u00a0time into helping me learn the game.\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0just\u00a0really grateful\u00a0to everyone\u00a0who\u2019s\u00a0helped me get to this point.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Mayo&#8217;s Saoirse Lally will feature when St Kilda face Geelong at 8am Irish time on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kobe McDonald was this week enlisted by St Kilda to play a special welcoming role to fellow Mayo&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":649804,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[76],"tags":[18,19,17,2354,132],"class_list":["post-649803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mayo","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649803","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=649803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/649804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}