'St Kilda are very sound': Andy Moran explains Mayo plan for Kobe McDonald
It was confirmed in November that Mayo's Kobe McDonald had signed with AFL club St Kilda. Photo by Sam Barnes/Sportsfile
Andy Moran said teenage prospect Kobe McDonald could still line out for Mayo next season, but added he will take a softly-softly approach with the St Kilda-bound player.
McDonald, son of Mayo legend Ciarán, signed with the AFL club in November but will remain in Ireland for another nine months as he completes his Leaving Cert.
"We're going to take our time with Kobe," new Mayo manager Moran told Colm Parkinson's podcast.
"He's here for another nine months. He's doing his Leaving Cert. He played a schools game (this week).
"We just need to take our time and we'll see where we are, I'd say in around January, February, March time. We'll keep in constant contact with his mum and dad and see where he is.
"St Kilda are very, very sound. They want him to train. They want him to play. They want him to play football. We'll just see how it goes over the next nine to ten months."
Moran continued: "Even when you see (Mark) O'Connor for Geelong and for Dingle last week... when they're home in these three to four months, they do realise that in professional sport you need to play ball. Kobe likes a bit of basketball and all that sort of stuff. I'm sure they'll be very aligned for him to play whatever he needs to play without overdoing it."
Moran compared the teenager to his fellow Ballaghaderreen clubman Pearce Hanley, who left Mayo for the AFL nearly two decades ago.
"Kobe's a tiny bit different," said Moran, "technically different in terms of kicking frees off the ground and stuff like that. But just a great talent. You see the difference Mark O'Connor makes when he comes home and plays for Dingle. These boys are picked to go to Australia because they're the elite of the elite."
Moran also confirmed that another Mayo-born AFL player, OisĂn Mullin, was part of the panel which recently travelled to Portugal for a warm-weather training camp.Â
"He has done a few trainings with us," said Moran.
"He was in the gym with us. He's tried to keep himself in shape to go back for pre-season.
"The option came, we asked him would he like to come with us and he said 100%. We have an awful lot of young guys in our squad, and for them to be learning off the likes of a professional sportsman like OisĂn Mullin who played in the (AFL) Grand Final what, eight weeks ago, that's too good of an option to turn down for me."
Moran explained his rationale for having the training camp at this time of year, when many inter-county teams prefer to hold one during the gap between the end of the league and the start of the championship.
"We've guys on our team who are fathers and have kids at home, kids on the way, and high octane jobs," said Moran.
"Then we've other fellas who are doing the Leaving Cert, other fellas that are in first year in college.
"These guys would have never sat down and had a chat, a bit of lunch, dinner, a pint or coffee together. I think just at the start of something it was just really important to get these boys together and get them to know each other and just get them moving. I'd be very happy with the way it went and the results in terms of the connection that came out of it.
"Mayo wouldn't have done a training camp abroad since 2019. I was on the last one as a player. I just think there's been a lot of debris around us not just on the pitch over the last while in terms of media coverage and all that. I think it was just important for lads to get away and get to know each other."
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