After 79 senior AFL appearances across six seasons at the Essendon Bombers in Melbourne, Conor McKenna couldn't wait to go home in 2020.
Having been named and shamed for testing positive for Covid-19, the Tyrone All-Ireland winner was disillusioned with how both the Bombers and the AFL treated him.
He was convinced that his time as an Australian Rules player was up; fishing and training with his cousins back in Benburb was infinitely more appealing.
McKenna endured five weeks in quarantine and was then hit with an unnecessary one-match ban by the AFL for a minor Covid breach. His only outlet for his undesrstandable frustration was playing Call of Duty as the hours, days, and weeks went by.
By the end of his isolation, he had had enough of Australia, the AFL, and Essendon in equal measure.
“I always knew I wanted to go home and play Gaelic at some point,”McKenna explained.
“It was just when and what time was going to suit best, and with Covid and all, it just felt like the right time.
“I wasn’t really enjoying my AFL football over here anymore and I wasn’t sort of playing AFL at that point, I think I was playing at VFL (a competition for reserve team squads in Melbourne) because I didn't want to play AFL any more.
“It just wasn’t a good partnership between me and the club at that stage.
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“I wasn’t benefiting them and they weren’t benefiting me, so it was sort of best to just call it quits and head back home.”
Fast forward to 2023, on Grand Final Eve, and McKenna is on the brink of making history. Premiership favourites Collingwood stand between McKenna and the opportunity to become only the second Irish player in history, after Kerry superstar Tadhg Kennelly, to win both an AFL Premiership and a Sam Maguire Cup.
McKenna won the latter with Tyrone in 2021, after which he began contemplating a return to the AFL, to complete the “unfinished business” he left behind.
During his time at Essendon, McKenna never won a single play-off, in contrast after just one season at the Brisbane Lions, on Saturday, he will line-up in his first ever season decider witnessed by nearly 100,000 supporters at the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground.
A host of AFL suitors chased McKenna's signature last year but two factors made Brisbane his preferred destination.
First it was the club's impressive finals record under incumbent coach Chris Fagan and second was his girlfriend Amy's friends in Queensland who would help her to settle 10,000 miles across the other side of the world.
“It was pretty close between a few clubs,” McKenna said.
“It definitely wasn’t as easy as just picking Brisbane.”
“My girlfriend was coming out and it was probably a bigger move for her than it was for me.
McKenna admits to having doubts when the Lions started the season 1-3 and were hammered 126-72 away to Port Adelaide at the Adelaive Oval in round one.
“It’s always a nervous time when you pick a team you don’t really know how the team is going to go, because stuff can change quickly in AFL,” McKenna said.
“It’s obviously worked out well. But the first couple of weeks when you’re losing and a lot of teams are winning you’re sort of thinking what now?”
The Lions recovered to finish in second place on the season ladder with a 17-6 win-loss record, including vistories in every home game, during the regular season. They were rewarded with two home finals and tomorrow will play in their first Grand Final for two decades.
Well done to @CMckenna7 who will play in the AFL Grand final against Collingwood next Saturday after @brisbanelions defeated Carlton this morning. pic.twitter.com/49cDSkVBKy
— Eglish GAC (@EglishGAC) September 23, 2023
The contrast with McKenna's time at Essendon couldn't be greater.
In 2013, the club was investigated by the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) over the legality of its supplements programme which led to 34 players being found guilty of using banned peptides and incurring suspensions.
The fall-out from the scandal rolled for years following the club being banned from the 2013 finals series.
“Look, we were at Essendon during a hard time with the (drugs) saga that was going on and all,” McKenna said.
“It definitely probably affected the club more than people thought at the time.
“We were a good team, we just probably didn’t get the results at the right time.
“I would’ve been here (Brisbane) a short time, but obviously they have a massive base of playing finals – they’ve been playing finals football deep into September the last four or five years.
“So it’s probably been a bit different coming here to a team that’s actually a solid base, whereas at Essendon we were always fighting just to get to the finals.”
McKenna was particularly incensed by the Australian media's relentless obsession with finding a scoop whilst showing apparent indifference over his health.
“I was the first AFL player to get Covid and it was a disease that was killing people all over the world at that time,” he said.
“It sort of felt like the media just didn’t really care that I could’ve died for all I knew, and all they cared about was the competition.
“Not that it made much of a difference, I was probably going home anyway. But it just didn’t make me very fond of the media in Australia.”
After trying his luck as a jockey on his dad's horses and selling cameras back home, McKenna knuckled down to help Tyrone with their fourth Sam Macguire.
“My mum grew up loving Gaelic football. So for her to see someone up there win the Sam Maguire (Cup) was unbelievable,” he said.
"It’s probably bigger for the family because it would mean more to them than to me.
“We were lucky enough to be good enough and won it in 2021 and the whole community gets behind you, which is really amazing.
"It gives everyone a big boost.
“So, after that I was happy enough to come back here and give this a crack.
"It definitely made a difference, but I probably would’ve come back anyway I’d say.
“But once I won that I certainly knew I was going to come back at some point.”
A career as a horse trainer beckons for McKenna post-football. He often spends early mornings with respected Australian trainer Robert Heathcote at Eagle Farm where the trackwork reminds him of home.
“I’d like to be involved with horses in some way. I just need to find a way I can make money out of it,” he said.
“I’d ideally love to train race horses. If I could pick a job it would be to train race horses.”
McKenna has never forgotten the unexpected telephone call from Tadhg Kennelly that changed his life during his school days in Tyrone when AFL recruiters were confident that they had spotted a future star in the making.
“He said there was a bit of interest in you,” McKenna recalled.
“Because over there in Ireland people will be watching you when you don’t really know.
“When I heard it was professional football and you get paid for it, I said I definitely wanted to give it a go.
McKenna’s parents flew to Australia to watch the Lions preliminary final victory over Carlton last week.
They will take their seats at the Grand Final alongside brother Ryan who is scheduled to jet into Melbourne on Friday
“The reason I came back is to try and win a premiership,” McKenna said.
“It would be unbelievable, I think Tadhg Kennelly is the only player to have an AFL premiership and an All-Ireland Sam Maguire.
“That’s the goal, so hopefully we can get it done.”
