{"id":312760,"date":"2026-02-23T09:27:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T09:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/312760\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T09:27:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T09:27:07","slug":"league-sunday-panel-on-mayo-superstar-mcdonald","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/312760\/","title":{"rendered":"League Sunday panel on Mayo &#8216;superstar&#8217; McDonald"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>What a telling impact it was. From five possessions, Mayo youngster Kobe McDonald bagged 1-04 in his senior debut for the county in Sunday&#8217;s Division 1 league clash against Monaghan.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rte.ie\/sport\/football\/2026\/0222\/1559765-mcdonald-makes-star-cameo-as-mayo-maul-monaghan\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">McDonald&#8217;s goal was evidence of his prodigious talent<\/a>, finishing low and hard past Farney keeper Kian Mulligan.<\/p>\n<p>On RT\u00c9&#8217;s Allianz League Sunday, both Ciar\u00e1n Whelan and Enda McGinley were full of praise for what the teenager served up in Clones, with Whelan saying: &#8220;He is obviously such a talent. He is the type of superstar Mayo really need and he can add so much to them, the type of superstar we want in our games.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Of course, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rte.ie\/sport\/football\/2025\/1103\/1541825-mcdonald-joins-afl-side-st-kilda\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">McDonald is due to link up with AFL outfit St Kilda <\/a>once he completes his Leaving Cert in June.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\">&#8216;It was a phenomenal impact. He&#8217;s obviously such a talent. He&#8217;s the type of superstar that Mayo really need&#8217;<br \/>Whelan and McGinley on Kobe McDonald&#8217;s stunning cameo in Mayo&#8217;s easy win over Monaghan<br \/>\ud83d\udcfaWatch League Sunday on RT\u00c92 &amp; the RT\u00c9player <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/OAr542ypZY\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/OAr542ypZY<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 The Sunday Game (@TheSundayGame) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TheSundayGame\/status\/2025708307856441735\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">February 22, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You can&#8217;t stand in the young kid&#8217;s way and he has to make decisions that are right for him,&#8221; the former Dublin midfielder added, while also expressing a view that many in the Connacht county are no doubt hoping for.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Everybody in Mayo would love to think he&#8217;d be wearing that green and red jersey for years to come because the impact he made today was phenomenal.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>On McDonald&#8217;s brilliant cameo, McGinley said: &#8220;You want to protect a young player like that, protect him from the hype, and then you throw him on and he goes and does that. For Andy Moran, there is no protecting now.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;To be fair the freedom in his play and the photo of the wristband he was wearing had legacy on it. It&#8217;s a big pressure to put on his shoulders but it&#8217;s fantastic for us as supporters. You have to love seeing talent like that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>                    <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What a telling impact it was. From five possessions, Mayo youngster Kobe McDonald bagged 1-04 in his senior&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312761,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-312760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}