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On this page His first championship in one table
Kobe McDonald stats: Mayo's 18-year-old All-Star in numbers
Kobe McDonald scored 1-28 in his seven championship games for Mayo in 2026, 31 points and 18% of everything Mayo scored in those games. Only Ryan O'Donoghue, the Footballer of the Year, scored more for the All-Ireland champions. He scored in every game he played, became the youngest All-Star ever at 18, and is now a St Kilda rookie in the AFL.
Data checked on against the match reports of all eight Mayo championship games in 2026.
His first championship in one table
Mayo played eight championship games on the way to their first All-Ireland in 75 years. McDonald missed the first, against London, and played in the next seven.
| Games played | 7 of 8 |
|---|---|
| Total | 1-28 (31 points) |
| Per game | 4.4 |
| Games he scored in | 7 of 7 |
| Mayo's total in his games | 169 |
| His share | 18% |
| Place among Mayo scorers | Second |
Our count from the official match reports. A goal is three points; a two-pointer counts two. Download the game-by-game data (CSV).
Game by game
| Date | Game | Result | McDonald | Share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 April | Connacht quarter-final v London | W 0-31 to 1-15 | Did not play | |
| 26 April | Connacht semi-final v Roscommon | L 1-18 to 2-25 | 0-6 | 29% |
| 31 May | All-Ireland round 1 v Monaghan | W 1-24 to 2-20 | 1-4 | 26% |
| 14 June | All-Ireland round 2A v Tyrone | L 1-18 to 0-22 | 0-3 | 14% |
| 20 June | All-Ireland round 3 v Meath | W 0-22 to 2-13 | 0-4 | 18% |
| 27 June | Quarter-final v Cork | W 0-23 to 0-18 | 0-4 | 17% |
| 11 July | Semi-final v Louth | W 3-23 to 0-15 | 0-4 | 13% |
| 26 July | Final v Kerry | W 1-20 to 1-17 | 0-3 | 13% |
Results with Mayo's score first. Sources: GAA.ie match reports, the Irish Examiner for Tyrone and the Echo for Cork.
His championship debut was a defeat. Roscommon beat Mayo by ten, but the GAA.ie report singled out McDonald for "taking responsibility and leading the fightback", and he finished with 0-6. Five weeks later in Clones, where he had scored 1-4 on his league debut in February, he scored 1-4 again as Mayo held off Monaghan by a point.
His share was highest in his first two games and settled between 13% and 18% from Tyrone on, while his own tally held at three or four a game. Over the last five games O'Donoghue outscored him in all but Meath, where both scored 0-4, and Darragh Beirne outscored him in four of the five.
Mayo without his scores
The same blunt test we ran on David Clifford's stats: take the points value of his scores off Mayo's total, change nothing else, and look at the result again.
Mayo won five of his seven games. Without his scores they win two, Cork and Louth. Monaghan, won by a point, and Meath, won by three, turn into defeats. The final, won 1-20 to 1-17, finishes level.
The test overstates things, as it did for David Clifford: someone else would have taken those shots. What it does show is how little room Mayo had. He scored 1-8 across the Monaghan and Meath games, and Mayo won them by four points between them.
The marginTwo of Mayo's five wins with McDonald in the team were won by fewer points than he scored, and the final by exactly as many.
Where he ranks in Mayo's attack
| Player | Total | Points |
|---|---|---|
| Ryan O'Donoghue | 2-56 | 62 |
| Kobe McDonald | 1-28 | 31 |
| Darragh Beirne | 3-18 | 27 |
| Jack Carney | 0-18 | 18 |
Our count across all eight games; Mayo scored 200 points in all.
O'Donoghue took nearly half his points from placed balls, as our free-taking statistics show. McDonald's came mostly from play: of his 31, the match reports mark only three scores as dead balls, a two-point free against Roscommon and 45s against Meath and Kerry.
Set against Clifford's first season
The obvious yardstick for a teenage forward is David Clifford's first championship, in 2018: 4-18 in five games, 30 points, six a game. McDonald's 31 points in seven games is 4.4 a game.
The two seasons are not like for like. Clifford's 2018 came before the two-point score existed, and he scored four goals to McDonald's one. Both still reached 30 points in their first championship. Clifford has since been Footballer of the Year three times.
Youngest All-Star ever
On 29 October McDonald was named on the 2026 All-Star team, one of six Mayo players on it. At 18 he is the youngest All-Star in the scheme's history, breaking the record of Derry's Dermot McNicholl from 1984, according to the Irish Examiner.
He was also nominated for Young Footballer of the Year, which went to his Mayo team-mate Darragh Beirne; Louth's Dara McDonnell was the third nominee.
Kobe McDonald's AFL move to St Kilda
The AFL move was settled before he played a championship game. His signing for St Kilda as a Category B rookie was reported in November 2025, with the plan that he would finish his Leaving Cert first.
- November 2025: signs for the AFL club (RTÉ, 3 November).
- February 2026: league debut off the bench against Monaghan in Clones, 1-4 in 25 minutes.
- April to July 2026: every championship game but one, and an All-Ireland medal.
- Early August 2026: joins St Kilda in Melbourne.
- End of August 2026: the club clears him to play for Crossmolina in the Mayo club championship.
- November 2026: due back for St Kilda's pre-season.
RTÉ 3 November 2025 and 31 August 2026; GAA.ie 25 February 2026; St Kilda FC; Irish Examiner 26 August 2026.
Speaking to the Irish Examiner the day after the final, McDonald said: "I don't want to go there and just blend in." Whether he would play for Mayo again was, in the same interview, an open question. St Kilda are keeping expectations low: "Our expectations for Kobe in the short term are quite modest," said Lenny Hayes, their general manager of football. In his first interview from Australia, McDonald told the same paper he had "always dreamed of being a professional athlete".
How we counted
Every figure comes from the scorer lines in the match reports: GAA.ie for five of his seven games and newspaper reports for Tyrone and Cork, named above. The GAA.ie report of the London game lists him neither in the team nor among the scorers. Totals count a goal as three points and a two-pointer as two. His share of Mayo's scoring is worked out over the seven games he played. The CSV lists each game, both versions of the result and its source.
Frequently asked questions
How many points did Kobe McDonald score in the 2026 championship?
1-28 in seven championship games for Mayo, 31 points, and he scored in all seven. In the league he also scored 1-4 on his debut against Monaghan in February.
How old is Kobe McDonald?
He was 18 when he became the youngest All-Star ever, in October 2026, eight months after his league debut for Mayo.
Did Kobe McDonald play in the All-Ireland final?
Yes. He scored 0-3, one of them a 45, as Mayo beat Kerry 1-20 to 1-17.
Is Kobe McDonald going to Australia?
He has already been. He joined St Kilda in Melbourne in early August 2026, came back to Mayo to play club football for Crossmolina, and is due back for pre-season in November.