Kieran Shannon: GAA shouldn't cry about Kobe McDonald, it wins most of these sporting battles
Mayo’s Kobe McDonald celebrates winning the 2024 Connacht MFC with his father and coach Ciaran McDonald. Pic: James Lawlor, Inpho
This is not the first time Kobe McDonald has been lost to a sport or a club in Crossmolina, just as it’s not the first time someone from his household has been targeted by the Australians.
The first time this column became aware of his prodigious talent was in the sport that inspired his distinctive first name. In April 2023 the equally-fabulously-named Crossmolina Lakers remarkably made it through to the top 10 of the U16 basketball All-Ireland club championships, beating established Superleague clubs like Belfast Star, Sligo All-Stars and Ballincollig along the way, thanks in no small part to young McDonald going full White Mamba, averaging 23 points a game in a tournament where matches lasted just 24 minutes.
Since then basketball has had to take a backseat; the fortunes and exploits of the Mayo minor footballers and the Crossmolina seniors dictated so.
As far as we know, there was no public outcry that he had opted for one sport over another. No collective mourning of the loss of somebody who could have been the cornerstone of a team to bring Super League basketball back to the county for the first time in decades. No cries for Deel Rovers to compensate the Lakers for helping hone the transferable skills he clearly gained from his time with them.
The weekend before last, Ben Murphy played midfield for Austin Stacks in the Kerry county final alongside Player of the Year nominee Joe O’Connor. When O’Connor was Murphy’s age he was beginning to re-examine his own sporting preferences. He had only returned to Stacks and the big round ball as a minor under the tactful invitation and encouragement of club manager Wayne Quillinan. The previous few years his first choice had been rugby with the local Tralee RFC and the Munster provincial academy.
As we now all know but have possibly forgotten, O’Connor subsequently focused on football. Rugby lost out. For as much as he enjoyed it and was good at it and was appreciative of it, he weighed it all up and found the football was more attractive with all that went with it, just as Kobe finished up with the Lakers.
There is not that much difference now between those cases and the decision of McDonald and Murphy this past weekend to sign for AFL clubs St Kilda and Brisbane Lions respectively. It’s just that each was that rare case where in the battle of sports for a talent, the GAA lost out.
It is, of course, understandable there is a certain anguish and sorrow in Mayo and Kerry at the loss of players with such obvious potential.
Mayo is a lot longer without Sam Maguire than it is without a Super League basketball team. For all the myriad of reasons you could suggest for why that wait is so long, as good as any is they haven’t quite produced forwards of the same quality and in the same quantity as a Kerry or Dublin. McDonald, like his father before him, is both a supremely creative footballer as well as athlete, which is why two decades on from the Australians trying to take the head off the “Sheila” with the ponytail in a lively International Rules series, they’ve again head-hunted a baller from Crossmolina.
Our sympathy for Mayo diehards though should be limited. Yes, McDonald could now join Pearce Hanley as one of the county’s many great What-Ifs; you could even contend that the difference between those counties in all those epic battles from 2013 to 2017 was that Mayo lost Hanley to Australia while Dublin got Ciarán Kilkenny back from Australia. But look at all the other great players Mayo still had in those years. Lee Keegan was a fine rugby player. Aidan O’Shea also flirted with the AFL and loved his hoops. Keith Higgins openly loved hurling more yet missed as many games for the county in that sport as he played for them. Eoghan McLoughlin was an international cyclist, Ryan O’Donoghue an international soccer player. Ultimately they all opted or came back to the big ball.
So might McDonald. In fact at some stage, most certainly McDonald. For every Hanley that makes it in the AFL there are another 10 that end up back home.
And what can be forgotten is that upon being discarded Down Under they can be discarded here as well. Ben Murphy is from the same town as Stefan Okunbor. After three years with Geelong, he lasted less time back in with Kerry; his last game with the county was over 20 months ago and he is no longer in the county panel. Who in 2025 cries for him no longer being involved with Kerry the way there was back in 2018 when he headed to Australia? At least now he will never die wondering. He got to experience both setups, only to learn that no-one, including him, owns either jersey, just as he never belonged to them or a particular sport either.
Mark Keane went back to the AFL because he realised and identified that he was more likely to get meaningful game-time with Adelaide than he was with the Cork hurlers.
Other branches of the GAA world have an Australian problem. Ladies Gaelic football has a massive one because of the sheer number of players opting for an AFLW in its infancy.
Men’s club football and hurling also has one because of the sheer number of young Irish people who are staying Down Under for longer than just a year’s sabbatical because of the housing crisis back home.
Men’s inter-county football for the most part doesn’t. They’re still winning most of the sporting battles, as much as they’re beginning to lose a few more of them to the AFL.
The answer is not financial compensation for the clubs. GAA players should not be viewed as commodities as players, even underage, in soccer can be.
To stem the drain, women’s GAA has to be made more attractive. Full integration will help. Mayo's or any other inter-county women’s team should have much of the same supports as their male counterparts.
As for the men’s game, it needs to nurture the talent it has. James Horan in a recent Irish Examiner podcast pointed out that there were six or seven other potential Mayo players who took part in a recent barnstorming SFC semi-final between McDonald’s Crossmolina and Westport.
The GAA is also not attracting as many players of African or European descent as sports like basketball or soccer are. Just look at the all-Irish sounding surnames in your local county final programme and compare and contrast to your typical football or basketball scoresheet in most urban areas.
There’s still plenty of talent all around them that GAA are missing out on. Australia can’t be blamed for that.
