{"id":654665,"date":"2026-10-14T17:04:17","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T17:04:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/654665\/"},"modified":"2026-10-14T17:04:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T17:04:17","slug":"donegal-star-finnbarr-roarty-joins-afl-side-collingwood-on-two-year-deal-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/654665\/","title":{"rendered":"Donegal star Finnbarr Roarty joins AFL side Collingwood on two-year deal \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/donegal-gaa\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/donegal-gaa\">Donegal\u2019s<\/a> Finnbarr Roarty has signed a two-year deal with Aussie Rules outfit Collingwood.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The 2025 Young Footballer of the Year is currently preparing with Naomh Conaill for Sunday\u2019s Donegal SFC final against St Eunan\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">But the 20-year-old is set to become the latest Irish player to pursue an AFL career Down Under after signing for Collingwood. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">His departure will be a significant blow to Donegal\u2019s 2027 ambitions. Roarty started all of Donegal\u2019s championship games this summer, building on a remarkable debut season in 2025 when he finished as an All Star defender and picked up the Young Footballer of the Year accolade \u2013 only the third Donegal player to win that prestigious award after Michael Murphy and Ryan McHugh.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Among the nominees for this season\u2019s Young Footballer of the Year award is Mayo\u2019s Kobe McDonald, who has already signed for St Kilda in Australia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Ois\u00edn Mullin, Young Footballer of the Year in 2020 and 2021, is currently playing AFL with Geelong.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Roarty spent much of the summer playing football in the United States, where he helped the P\u00e1draig Pearse club win the Chicago senior football championship.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">But he has since returned to Ireland where he has played a leading role in guiding Naomh Conaill back to the Donegal decider with the Glenties side are aiming for back-to-back titles.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Roarty will not be the first Irish player on Collingwood\u2019s books, with Down\u2019s Martin Clarke, Derry\u2019s Anton Tohill and Cork\u2019s Mark Keane all having spells with the Melbourne-based club.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donegal\u2019s Finnbarr Roarty has signed a two-year deal with Aussie Rules outfit Collingwood. The 2025 Young Footballer of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":654666,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[91289,6342,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-654665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-aussie-rules","tag-donegal-gaa","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654665","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=654665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}