Ballincollig and Cork footballer Liam O\u2019Connell has signed a new AFL contract with St Kilda extending his stay for at least another year.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Connell was midfield on the Cork U20 team that lost to Kerry in the 2023 Munster U20 final and has played seven games for the Melbourne club since debuting earlier this season.<\/p>\n
The 22-year-old lived in Western Australia for several years as a child, before returning to Ireland when he was 11. He was one of five players to sign new deals with the club.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re really excited to have Dougal, Isaac, Liam, Paddy and Liam commit for next year,\u201d said Executive General Manager of Football David Misson.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll five players have had unique journeys this season, navigating the challenges of life as an AFL footballer.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne thing that has stood out across each of them is their resilience and professionalism, which is a credit to who they are as people as well as players.\u201d The club\u2019s website went on to praise O\u2019Connell\u2019s progression.<\/p>\n
\u201cO\u2019Connell\u2019s rapid development since joining the club as a Category B Rookie in 2024 has shown he belongs at the elite level.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, ahead of the final series, Mark Keane\u2019s Adelaide are on the verge of winning their first minor premiership since 2017. The Cork star was outstanding in a three-point victory over Collingwood last time out. A minor premiership is awarded to the team that finishes first in the league standings after the regular campaign.<\/p>\n
The Crows take on North Melbourne, who are currently third from bottom, in the final round of the home-and-away season on Saturday morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ballincollig and Cork footballer Liam O\u2019Connell has signed a new AFL contract with St Kilda extending his stay…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":88679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,596,59707,588,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-88678","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-football","14":"tag-hurling","15":"tag-sport","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88678","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=88678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}