Kobe McDonald heads to the AFL on a rookie contract but the financial rewards could be huge

When Kobe McDonald leaves the long summer nights of celebration in Mayo, he will arrive in a colder, darker Melbourne in the middle of winter and at the height of its collective obsession with the AFL. A spotlight will be beamed on the teenager, made even brighter thanks to his historic All-Ireland medal and stellar performances this season.Melbourne moves to the incessant rhythm of Australian Rules football. In Sydney, the first question a stranger asks you at a dinner party is “What job do you do?” In Melbourne, the ubiquitous question is “who do you barrack for?” In the local vernacular, to not support or ‘barrack’ for one of Melbourne’s nine professional AFL teams is simply unforgivable.The game infiltrates every part of the city, even those you don’t suspect. My best friend from Ireland worked in a local church a decade ago. Not being particularly religious, I was still determined to support him on Easter Sunday. The minister stood up to give his welcome. There was no ‘Christ is Risen’ or even a basic ‘Happy Easter’. The minister started decrying the poor form of his beloved St Kilda on Saturday night to the knowing nods of the congregation. McDonald is joining St Kilda. The 153-year-old club has a large, passionate support, lots of money to spend, has historically underachieved and currently languishes in mid-table on the AFL ladder. The club typically promise a lot each season, before faltering by the end of the year.READ MORESt Kilda supporters during the AFL match between St Kilda and Port Adelaide at Marvel Stadium in Melbourne on July 11th, 2026. Photograph: Daniel Pockett/Getty Images The club won a single VFL/AFL Premiership in 1966, a poor return for generations of supporters. In Premier League terms, they are Newcastle United.McDonald joins the club as a category B rookie, on a base salary of around €33,000 topped up by match payments of roughly €2,440 if he succeeds in making the AFL. If McDonald proves he belongs in the AFL, the financial rewards are huge. His St Kilda team-mate Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera is on a salary of approximately €1.2 million a season.In essence, McDonald has joined the club as an apprentice and will be given time to develop in a sport that shares similarities with Gaelic football, but has infinitely more differences. McDonald will need to digest a thick book of new rules, absorb far more physical tackles not dissimilar to rugby and reprogramme his brain to take a mark, pause and not play on automatically. [ Mayo’s Kobe McDonald: ‘I’m sure there’ll be a time in the future where I’ll be home’Opens in new window ]He will also need to get used to the adjustment of long days as a professional athlete. An AFL player will arrive at the training ground before 8am, completing weights sessions, meetings, training, commercial and media obligations and will finish with exacting daily reviews from one of six coaches. When McDonald leaves work for a coffee, he will find that AFL will dominate the front and back of Melbourne’s newspapers, with the radio and television stations speculating on position changes and contracts. There is almost no escape from the sport in the city. In the AFL, McDonald will have his fellow Mayo footballer Oisín Mullin as a strong example to follow. Mullin has transformed into an elite role player in the AFL with the Geelong Cats. Mullin is renowned as one of the league’s best ‘taggers’, essentially sent out to nullify the opposition’s best player by shutting them out of the game. On Wednesday night, Mullin’s showdown against the AFL’s best player Collingwood’s Nick Daicos, was billed as one of the game’s best contests. Geelong won the game, with Mullin having another strong game.Nick Daicos of Collingwood is tackled by Geelong's Oisín Mullin during the AFL Round 21 match between Collingwood and Geelong at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on July 30th, 2026. Photograph: Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images Generally, a category B rookie from Ireland is expected to spend at least a season in the VFL, the reserve league for the AFL. The league is filled with fringe AFL players, veterans and aspiring professionals desperate for a chance in the big show. Mullin was a quick learner and only needed three games for Geelong’s VFL team before making his AFL debut in 2023 and becoming a vital member of the squad since then. The AFL, its players, fans and coaches are utterly obsessive about statistics for each player. How many times a player touches the ball, how many kilometres they have run and how many pressure acts they have done on the opposition are just some of the statistics monitored and quoted biblically on the morning after games by media and fans. McDonald will need to learn how to separate perception from reality. Statistics do not necessarily tell the story of a player’s ability in the AFL, something the media can forget.In 1991, the late, great Jim Stynes, the former Dublin minor footballer, won the AFL’s Brownlow Medal as the game’s best player as a ruckman with Melbourne. Stynes’ achievements laid the platform for other brilliant Irish Gaelic footballers to follow in the AFL such as Tadhg Kennelly, Conor Nash, Zach Tuohy and Mark O’Connor, to name a few. Mayo's Kobe McDonald celebrates after Mayo's All-Ireland final victory over Kerry. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho McDonald easily has the potential to follow them, if the AFL machine does not coach his natural ability that made him so great in Gaelic football out of him. Kicking mechanics, statistics and detail matter in the AFL, but McDonald’s innate athletic ability cannot and should not be disregarded. Expressing yourself matters and in the AFL’s rigid game plans overseen by a large coaching staff this can be forgotten.Kobe McDonald and his Mayo team’s breaking the 75-year curse and lifting the All-Ireland has brought Gaelic football back to the forefront in Australia. The iconic commentary from Midwest Radio was even played on a popular Australian rugby podcast. Before the All-Ireland final, McDonald was just another talented Gaelic footballer trying his luck in Melbourne. His obvious talent has created an expectation in Australia that he can and will deliver in the AFL. [ A neuropsychologist’s view: This Kobe McDonald comment holds the secret to Mayo’s winOpens in new window ]