History tells us Kobe is not a missing link
Kobe McDonald in action for Crossmolina Deel Rovers against Knockmore in the 2024 North Mayo MFC. Melbourne-based St Kilda announced last week that the teenager would be joining them in 2026.
I better be careful here, not appearing too smug, too smart – or glic, as they say in Irish. Kobe McDonald’s imminent departure to Australia leaves another ‘what if’ moment in the county. Actually, we can answer the ‘what if’ scenario but I’ll leave that until later. But Kobe’s departure is the latest in a chain that, believe it or not, is as old as Mayo GAA itself. Once upon a time we called it emigration, today we call it travelling and opportunity.
There are a few players whose names are attached to ‘ah if we only had such a lad we’d surely have won the All-Ireland’. Prominent amongst them and promulgated by their would-be managers were lads like Ger Geraghty. Would Sam have rested in Mayo had Geraghty come back from America in 1989? John O’Mahony certainly felt him a key link. O’Mahony was doubly unfortunate in that around 2008 the county also lost Pearce Hanley to Aussie rules too. Many people who inhabit various blogospheres have Hanley as the missing link in six All-Irelands available since 2012.
Had we Geraghty or Hanley, would we would have reached the Promised Land? I’m not sure. We also had Oisín Mullin, a lad whose exploits are fresh in our minds. Cut from granite, functional in many positions, playing heads up football, Mullin announced his undoubted class in that funeral-atmosphere Covid final of December 2020. The usual Mayo leaving the back door unlocked for a six-second goal were dragged back level inside three minutes by the efforts of Mullin. A year later we reached the final and were odds on favourites to win and bluntly, blew it. Mullin, still the ultimate baller, was now dragged down to Mayo level ennui in that match. A pale shadow of the brio-filled boy a season earlier.
I’d put Mullin up with the best I’ve ever seen play for Mayo but even his starting and playing in two finals wasn’t able to tilt the scales. So staying and reaching finals isn’t enough. But it’s nice to say ‘ah if we only had’. Johnny Cash had a song about a guy who worked for Ford on the line. He wanted to buy the ultimate car but couldn’t afford it so over the decades took one piece at a time from the Ford plant, hoping to have the cream machine by retirement.
I’ve paraphrased the song there but Cash in trying to get the perfect car, the All-Ireland for us, had parts that were generations apart. They didn’t fit. Kobe McDonald is a lucky young boy. Level-headed and plainly talented, at 18 he’s going on an adventure. The future is his and his only. Not ours, not our dreams, not our hopes. Would he be a Geraghty or a Mullin? None of our business. But Kobe is lucky. He gets the choice. Go back the decades and often the choice wasn’t yours.
1948 saw man-mountain and brilliant footballer ‘Big’ Pat McAndrew play at centre-back against Cavan in that year’s All-Ireland final. Pat was a medical student, a doctor, but work was scarce in post empire Ireland, emigration was rife and being a doctor guaranteed nothing. By 1949, Big Pat was in New York, never to return. McAndrew, a Bangor Erris man, was but one of thousands of Irish who had to migrate.
Go to the 1950-55 team and you’ll find that many still under 25 by then were going or gone from that twice winning All-Ireland team. Peter Quinn gone at 24 forever, Doc Carney at 25, gone, Peter Solan, an engineer, gone to Rhodesia at the same age. John, Big Pat’s brother, moved to Warwickshire to practice medicine.
Dan O’Neill, Seamus O’Donnell and John Nallen saw their future outside the county and success too. Jimmy Curran and the Mulderrigs migrated or were abandoned. In the early 1970s Eugene Rooney and Tom Fitzgerald left the county to the USA. Top, top players. John Gibbons and Sean Kilbride were possibly worn down by Mayo losing its way, they left us. Migration, movement and Mayo are synonymous. Back in the 1930s to the late 1970s migration was forced. Today it’s a lifestyle choice though the cost of housing plays its part too.
The lump in the throats of Big Pat’s generation won’t be felt in the throats of the Neo Irelanders of today. This is the age of the Instagrammer and shiny tech world. Kobe belongs to that world. Kids are adaptable. Good luck son.
Meanwhile, I’ve just discovered that Pearce Hanley was born in 1988, leaving him 36ish. Having absorbed our back-to-the-past retro Mayo squad that was revealed last week, Hanley would be a perfect fit with some of the elders coming back. Whilst most counties are dropping the age profile, we are age friendly. Not sure what’s the plan but hey, someone better know. Aido is 35, Hennelly likewise, Cillian a year younger, James Carr, talented but injury ravaged. Let’s wish him an injury free run. Mayo have decided something new.
Kobe McDonald can spend the next ten seasons in Australia and return still only 28 with a future for us. That’s assuming that some of the current panel have retired by then. Ah, I’m joking… or? We’ve set our stall now. Front load with experience and go again. All we know is Kobe has time on his side and that us of Mayo blood are used to watching time pass.
