Nathan Johns

speaker

3,934 appearances 33 recordings 2 series first heard Apr 2026 last heard 6d ago

Nathan Johns’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 33 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 10.

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The Counter Ruck: The Irish Times Rugby Podcast · The AFL comes for Irish rugby · 31 Jul 2026 podcast

Are they now competing with Australian clubs for the best athletes and talent as well as all the other sports that are in Ireland? matched

Or is this just a once off? matched

So here's John. matched

John O'Sullivan, hello. matched

This is an old-fashioned scoop from you a while ago regarding Irish interests in the AFL, Aussie rules. matched

Given the timing of the weekend, it probably does look a little bit like we're trying to jump on the bandwagon of Comey, McDonald and Mayo, given he's now going to St Kilda after winning the All-Ireland. matched

But he's not the only Irish face who will be going down under, or the only young Irish face going down under, is the nice little segue that we're going to get into and have a chat about today. matched

as in the AFL is more lucrative at this stage of his career? matched

Oh, yeah, absolutely. matched

Yeah, yeah. matched

No comparison. matched

Because that answers the question, probably, that I was going to put to you maybe later on, but I'll put it to you now. matched

You know, we do see the AFL, I was going to say poach, that's too sinister a word. matched

We do see the AFL swooping for Irish talent in Gaelic football quite a lot. matched

As you know, we talked about Kobe McDonald there, Oisín Mullen is another player. matched

mayo man who is gone down under but we don't see that much of it in rugby and is that purely would you say that's purely a financial reason one sport is amateur one isn't so there is a pathway to being a professional rugby player in Ireland and that's why that's another barrier to going abroad matched

He sounds like the sort of athlete that to say that Irish rugby can't afford to lose athletes like this is probably a bit drastic. matched

But we talk ad nauseum on the podcast about, you know, low playing numbers compared to other sports, not developing the top end of not just pace, but just general athletes for a variety of reasons, or at least maybe not top end, but Irish rugby tends to produce a lot of athletes that are of a similar profile. matched

So when you get someone that has a slightly different set of athletic skills, it's, matched

I know we're covering this from a rugby angle, but for your mind, is this still, because I'd forgotten before you said it five minutes ago about the GAA angle, is this primarily the transferable skill here is still GAA? matched

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