{"id":402307,"date":"2026-01-09T16:13:42","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T16:13:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/402307\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T16:13:42","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T16:13:42","slug":"massive-boost-for-dingle-as-afl-star-mark-oconnor-free-to-play-in-all-ireland-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/402307\/","title":{"rendered":"Massive Boost For Dingle As AFL Star Mark O&#8217;Connor Free To Play In All-Ireland Final"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This club season has been a fairytale one for Dingle so far. They bridged a 77-year gap to win a Kerry title, snatched victory from the jaws of defeat against St Finbarr&#8217;s to win their maiden Munster title, and won a thriller against Leinster kingpins Ballyboden St Enda&#8217;s to make the All-Ireland final.<\/p>\n<p>With the likes of Paul Geaney, Tom O&#8217;Sullivan, and Dylan Geaney in their ranks, it is no wonder that they have made such an impression on the All-Ireland series once they managed to escape the Kerry championship.<\/p>\n<p>Despite their obvious wealth of intercounty talent, the addition of one player has played a massive part in their fairytale run. Having lost Kerry midfielder Barry Dan O&#8217;Sullivan to an ACL injury earlier in 2025, they were in need of reinforcements around the middle and who better to draft in than a professional athlete.<\/p>\n<p>Massive Boost For Dingle As AFL Star Mark O&#8217;Connor Free To Play In All-Ireland Final<\/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 class=\"\">Mark O&#8217;Connor has been granted permission by his AFL club Geelong to line out for Dingle in the All-Ireland Club SFC final against Roscommon side St Brigid&#8217;s.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Geelong has granted premiership defender Mark O\u2019Connor another two weeks in Ireland to play in his hometown Dingle\u2019s quest for a maiden All-Ireland Club Championship on January 18.<br \/>He\u2019ll then return to AFL pre-season <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/7NewsMelbourne?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">@7NewsMelbourne<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/7AFL?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">@7AFL<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Mitch Cleary (@cleary_mitch) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/cleary_mitch\/status\/2008760110710223242?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">January 7, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The 28-year-old midfielder, who has been with the Australian club since finishing his minor career with Kerry, has played a massive part of Dingle&#8217;s run to the All-Ireland final.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This club season has been a fairytale one for Dingle so far. They bridged a 77-year gap to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402308,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,121040,85],"class_list":["post-402307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-kerry","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402307","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=402307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}