ST KILDA wingman Liam O'Connell will be the next Irishman to play in the AFL after the County Cork product was picked to make his debut against Adelaide on Sunday. 

The 22-year-old was informed earlier this week, to allow time for his family to travel from the Emerald Isle, before his selection was confirmed at RSEA Park on Friday. 

O'Connell joined the Saints as a Category B rookie at the end of 2023 after being scouted by former high performance boss Nick Walsh, before Graeme Allan and Stephen Silvagni travelled to Ireland to recruit him.   

Silvagni and St Kilda coach Ross Lyon played against O'Connell's father Con in an exhibition game in 1984 when they travelled to Ireland for an under-16s representative tour, before they started their VFL careers the following year.

O'Connell played 16 games for Sandringham in the VFL last season, but after a full pre-season, the former Gaelic footballer was one of the most improved players at the Saints over summer, starring against Carlton in a practice match last month. 

Unlike other Irish imports, O'Connell had a decent knowledge base of AFL and understood the fundamentals of the game before St Kilda's approach. He spent seven years living in Western Australia between the age of four and 11, back when Lyon was coaching Fremantle and Dockers champion Matthew Pavlich ruled the west. 

"My mother is actually from Perth; she grew up there. My dad is from Cork. They met in Ireland and I was born in Ireland. We moved out in 2007," O'Connell told AFL.com.au.

"I grew up in the northern suburbs of Perth and played a bit of everything: soccer, Little Athletics, but when I was in year five and six, I started playing footy. 

"Fremantle were going well at the time in 2012, 2013, 2014 and I really got into them at the time. Ross was the coach. My mother lived in Fremantle for a few years and she supported them, so as a result, I supported them. I loved them growing up.

"I remember I had a long sleeve No. 29 guernsey. I loved Matthew Pavlich. The qualifying final down in Geelong in 2013 was one of the best days I can remember.

"Once we did move back at the end of 2014 I did lose touch with it. You immerse yourself in the culture back home and forget about it, but if I stayed in Perth, I would have loved to have tried to play footy at the top level. So, I am really lucky the way it has worked out."

O'Connell struggled with bouts of homesickness in his first season. He spent most of the off-season break back in Ireland, where St Kilda cleared him to play a game of Gaelic football for his local club Ballincollig against neighbours Eire Og, in a gesture O'Connell cherished. He returned to Ireland for the Christmas break, banked a block of training in freezing conditions, then hit the ground running in January, propelling him towards a round one debut at Adelaide Oval.

"Home is so important to me and a lot of Irish guys," O'Connell said. "Homesickness is a real thing; I probably had that a bit last year. I did get a bit of an itch at the end of last season when I saw my club was coming to the knockout phase. 

"I remember getting in touch with 'Misso' [David Misson] a week after I was back and said I'd really like to play a bit when I was back. He told me to give me the details and what training I had done in between. He got in touch with Ross and got back to me and told me they were comfortable with me playing one game. I played in the local derby, which was so special for me."

This time last year, O'Connell would sit in meetings inside RSEA Park and need a translator once they were over. The coaches weren't speaking a language he couldn't understand, but the terminology made little sense to someone far more familiar with an O'Neills ball than a Sherrin. 

Fast forward to this pre-season and the information is now making sense. A lot of sense. Everything feels more comfortable, both at the club and away. O'Connell has moved in with consummate professional Mason Wood and is like a sponge. No one at Moorabbin is more professional than the veteran, who has had a profound impact on many at St Kilda, including Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera. 

"It's chalk and cheese this pre-season," he said. "Everything outside of football feels far more settled here. Last year I was sitting in meetings and having no clue what was being said. I would have to sit down with a coach afterwards to understand what happened. I've been able to get my head around the game a lot more this pre-season, which has helped me make better decisions on the field. 

"Mason has been amazing for me at home with just the advice and the small things that go into being a professional. It's things like diet, nutrition and sleep, how to recover when you're away from the club. Choosing not to golf when you need to stay off your legs, staying engaged mentally with study and university. It is the real 0.1 percenters, nailing your preparation. 

"I feel coming in from overseas you are trying to make up years of development, so I think all those little gains are so important to me to close the gap to other guys who have been playing footy their whole lives."

O'Connell will be the first Irishman to debut in the AFL since two-time GAA young player of the year winner Oisin Mullin started his career at Geelong in 2023. The Cats have mastered the Irish experiment in recent years, with Zach Tuohy and Mark O'Connor joined Sydney's Tadhg Kennelly as premiership players from Ireland in 2022. 

Now O'Connell wants to follow in their footsteps and become a permanent fixture in the AFL, just like Conor Nash has done at Hawthorn under Sam Mitchell, more than a decade after turning his back on a promising rugby union career to try a foreign game in a foreign land.

"That's the aspiration," he said. "I actually read Zach Tuohy's book in like three days; probably the fastest book I've ever read, I just crunched it. You look at guys like him, or even before that with Jim Stynes, who is just a legend of the game. You would love to be what they've been.

"I connected with Conor Nash a bit last year. You look up to him and he signed a five-year contract last year. Would love to be like one of the guys, absolutely."

O'Connell will start his AFL journey on the same day Melbourne will host the inaugural Jim's Game at the MCG and wear a shamrock on the club's guernsey to celebrate the life and legacy of the late great Jim Stynes. It feels like a good omen for the kid from Cork.