![\"Ben](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/00236a44-614.jpg\"\/)
\nKerry’s Ben Murphy will join Conor McKenna and Darragh Joyce at Brisbane<\/p>\n
Emerging Mayo GAA star Kobe McDonald has signed with AFL club St Kilda as a Category B rookie while Kerry’s Ben Murphy has joined the Brisbane Lions.<\/p>\n
McDonald, son of Mayo great Ciar\u00e1n, joins the Melbourne-based club amid interest from a number of teams.<\/p>\n
“We’re thrilled to welcome Kobe and the McDonald family to St Kilda,” CEO Carl Dilena told the club\u2019s website.<\/p>\n
“Kobe\u2019s natural abilities have been evident for some time, and his experience playing Gaelic football will provide a great foundation for his transition to AFL.<\/p>\n
“We\u2019ve seen the impact Irish players can make in our game, and we\u2019re looking forward to supporting Kobe as he begins his journey with the club.”<\/p>\n
McDonald, who excelled as Crossmolina reached the Mayo semi-final this season, is expected to complete his Leaving Cert before heading to Australia. He first came to prominence by firing Mayo to the 2023 All-Ireland MFC semi-final where they lost out to Armagh.<\/p>\n
Mayo has had its fair share of AFL recruits with Pearce Hanley and Ois\u00edn Mullen, the latter currently with Geelong, making the move.<\/p>\n
Murphy, meanwhile, has also signed as a Category B rookie with the 18-year-old Kerry player first being identified by the club as a possible recruit two years ago.<\/p>\n
\nKerry’s Ben Murphy will join Conor McKenna and Darragh Joyce at Brisbane<\/p>\n
“I am really excited to get the chance to join the Brisbane Lions and play AFL,” Murphy told the club website.<\/p>\n
“I think anyone joining a team in the position the Lions are in, as back-to-back premiers, would be delighted and I am no different.”<\/p>\n
Murphy joins Tyrone’s Conor McKenna, who recently signed a one-year extension, and Kilkenny’s Darragh Joyce on the Lions’ men’s roster.<\/p>\n
The 2023 and ’24 Kingdom minor and Austin Stack’s clubman impressed in a trial in August.<\/p>\n
Like Mayo, Kerry have lost a number of players to the AFL including Mark O’Connor, Cillian Burke and Rob Monahan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Emerging Mayo GAA star Kobe McDonald has signed with AFL club St Kilda as a Category B rookie…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259351,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-259350","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}