{"id":633163,"date":"2026-09-23T05:20:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T05:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/633163\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T05:20:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T05:20:13","slug":"ireland-under-20-noah-byrne-set-to-sign-for-afl-side-brisbane-lions-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/633163\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland under-20 Noah Byrne set to sign for AFL side Brisbane Lions \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/ireland-rugby-u20s\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/ireland-rugby-u20s\/\">Ireland under-20<\/a> Noah Byrne is set to join AFL side Brisbane Lions <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/sport\/rugby\/2026\/07\/14\/leinster-lose-promising-fullback-noah-byrne-to-australian-rules\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/sport\/rugby\/2026\/07\/14\/leinster-lose-promising-fullback-noah-byrne-to-australian-rules\/\">having turned down a contract at Leinster<\/a> in July.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Speaking during the summer, Leinster academy manager Peter Smyth confirmed Byrne had been offered a contract, which the 20-year-old turned down in favour of a move to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/australian-rules\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/australian-rules\/\">AFL<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cI understand his decision and my door will always be open,\u201d Smyth said of Byrne\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Several AFL clubs were understood to have made contact with Byrne during his time playing with the Dublin minor footballers while still a student at Gonzaga College. Byrne was part of the Dubs side that reached the 2023 All-Ireland minor football semi-final, where they were defeated by eventual champions Derry.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Byrne also turned down subsequent advances from AFL clubs last year, instead opting to turn his focus to rugby. The fullback featured for Ireland in this year\u2019s Under-20 Six Nations and the World Rugby Junior World Championship in July.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The Lions, who count Conor McKenna (Tyrone), Ben Murphy (Kerry) and Darragh Joyce (Kilkenny) among their squad, are gunning for a third consecutive AFL title this weekend, facing Fremantle in the Grand Final.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland under-20 Noah Byrne is set to join AFL side Brisbane Lions having turned down a contract at&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633164,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[268808,61,60,39220,11287,112],"class_list":["post-633163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-australian-rules","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-ireland-rugby-u20s","tag-leinster-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633163","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=633163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}