"A total maverick" - Conor McKenna's former mentor outlines what makes the Tyrone native a success in the AFL

Conor McKenna is aiming to win an AFL Premiership title with Brisbane Lion in Saturday's Grand Final against Sydney Swans
-Credit: (Image: Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)


No-one is quite sure where ‘Kiddo’ came from, but in Tyrone circles it stuck.

“A total maverick” who could “take the light out of your eyes” with a mesmerising split second piece of brilliance. 'Kiddo.'

The ‘Kiddo’ in question already holds an All-Ireland senior title, and in the early hours of tomorrow morning he could join an elite list of Irish men to win an AFL Premiership crown.

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‘Kiddo’ was very nearly a jockey too, and there’s a fair chance he would have gone to the top of that sport as well. A three year minor, naturally - they don’t come along all that often. Nothing appears to faze ‘Kiddo.’

At 28 he’s done a lot and in his spare time, away from the professional game, he’s currently training horses, something he has a real passion for and which was ingrained in him from a young age.

When he walked away from the Essendon Bombers back in 2020, in the middle of the covid pandemic, he left a big salary behind to return to a normal nine to five job at home.

In his year and a half spell back in Ireland, ‘Kiddo’ didn’t bother with the weights room, but he still emerged as an off the cuff goal threat, that x-factor in Tyrone's shock 2021 All-Ireland triumph.

His initial deal with the Brisbane Lions, a one year contract, which he later topped up with a two year extension, was worth in the region of $350,000 (€215,000) per annum. Nice work ‘Kiddo.’

'Kiddo,' Conor McKenna. So where did it come from?

Mickey Donnelly, who managed McKenna to the 2013 All-Ireland minor final with Tyrone, thinks it was 2021 Sam Maguire winning captain Paudie Hampsey who came up with it, but he isn't sure.

“See when Conor came in, in ‘12 (to the Tyrone minor set-up), it was a toss of a coin whether he was going to go down the road of a jockey,” says Donnelly, who is part of Conor Laverty’s backroom team in Down.

“The family are massively into horses. In fact, Conor’s girlfriend (Amy McAuley), she’s into endurance horse riding, these big events in Dubai and what not.

“That’s the sort of circles that fella is running in. There’s that and he’s a brilliant soccer player as well. He was just really talented at everything he did, but a real maverick. A total maverick.

“He was light as a kite when he was 15. Any time you’d have run into him, when he was at home, he hasn’t changed. Sometimes professional sport can lead to maybe an adverse change in lad’s personalities.

"He’s the same lad he was when he was 16/17. No ego. No baggage. Just a brilliant, brilliant young fella.

“Listen, we knew he was special then because athletically he wasn’t massive, but he just had such a great turn of pace.

“Even then he was even a moments player then. He could do something that would just take the light out of your eyes. Just a split second where you sat back and said, ‘Wow, that was special.’

“Marty (Clarke) says that about the AFL. It’s a moments game. You might be on the field for five minutes.

“It’s not like Gaelic where you have 45/50 minutes to make an imprint on the game. It literally is wee snippets of the game where they really have to excel. That just sums him up.”

One of those moments came in the 2013 All-Ireland minor semi-final.

“He was stinking the place out and we were playing really poorly against a Roscommon team we should have been beating,” recalls Donnelly.

“He just scored a goal out of nothing, a really beautiful goal. He just breaks, edge of the D. Everybody else is just dinking that over the bar. Reset.

“He is pulling the trigger. Top bins. That’s just him. You turn away and you scratch your head. That’s just the magic he gives you.”

And what attracted Brisbane to McKenna. If the Lions can bridge a 21 year gap going back to 2003 and overcome last year’s final heartache, McKenna will become just the fourth Irish man to win an AFL Premiership, and only the second All-Ireland winner to do so.

The other man to do ‘the double’ is Sydney Swans’ Tadhg Kennelly, while two years ago Geelong duo Zach Tuohy and Mark O’Connor joined the Kerry man as Premiership winners.

McKenna has never been one to tow the line, but he is living proof there is another way.

“It’s refreshing too,” says Donnelly. “I think for success in sport you need all types. He (McKenna) definitely gives you a break from the norm.

“There are lads that came back from Australia and bring the whole professional structure. They raise the standards in terms of preparation, diet, S and C and all the rest.

“That’s not Conor. I would say in Essendon he just played off the cuff. Came back to Tyrone, to a certain extent played off the cuff.

“He is a maverick. I was reading a book about Alf Ramsey and the ‘66 World Cup and why Ramsey eventually went on the wane.

“He never picked players that were creative after the World Cup. He picked robots. You need boys of all types and that’s what ‘Kiddo’ gives you.”

Donnelly says McKenna was “as high as a kite all the time in a great way,” but adds, “you couldn’t be angry with him.”

He continues: “He wasn’t difficult in the conventional form where he is out late or messing about, or he wasn’t following rules or regulations.

“He is a brilliant fella, a great lad. Delighted for him because he comes from a great family. Great people, no airs and graces, no bullshit, and a lot of the time, especially with Aussie culture, they are exceptionally self-confident.

“I think that’s why Conor has survived. He is not fazed. A lot of the lads would be blown away by that but he wouldn’t give a shit. Not a care in the world.

“I’d say father time has kicked in with him too. With that, he is someone that wasn’t easily fazed by big games. Nerves weren’t really a factor with him. It was just another game. It was a kickabout, a bit of crack.

“Just, there is 80,000 people there, ‘Sure what about it. I love it.’”

Not a bad way to be going into a Grand Final.

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