Another star is born Down Under as Mooney makes Collingwood debut

Only a few months after arriving in Australia, Down teenager Caolan Mooney made a winning start to his AFL career with Collingwood last night.

After kicking five goals for the Collingwood development side in the VFL last Sunday, Mooney was fast-tracked into the first team squad for the clash with Fremantle, although disappointingly for Irish fans, his promotion came at the expense of Marty Clarke, who was excluded after some patchy form of late.

Mooney, still only 19, didn’t mark his debut with a goal, but still managed a couple of tackles and a couple of assists in what was by all accounts an encouraging start, even though the man himself is obviously his own harshest critic if a tweet sent to former Down teammates Brendan McVeigh and Mark Poland this morning is anything to go by.

In any case, the Pies ended up winning by a fairly comfortable 29 points and given the impression made by Mooney so far Down Under – the Aussies are believed to be frightened by his sheer pace – we don’t think it’s the last positive bulletin we’ll be hearing about his progress.

As the locals might say, ‘On ya Caolan mate’.