Westmeath’s Connellan’s time with AFL club St Kilda comes to an end

WESTMEATH’S RAY CONNELLAN has not been offered a contract with AFL club St Kilda for the 2019 season.

Westmeath native Ray Connellan.Source: Ryan Byrne/INPHO

Connellan has spent the past two seasons with the Melbourne-based club after having joined them when he signed a two-year contract in July 2016.

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The club has opted not to hand him a new contract but praised him for his contribution.

“Ray has given everything over the past two seasons to make the step from Gaelic football to the AFL,” stated the St Kilda general manager of football Simon Lethlean.

Connellan confirmed the news in an Instagram post, describing his time with St Kilda as ‘the most amazing experience’ of his life.

Connellan initially caught the eye at the AFL Europe Talent Combine trials in DCU in 2015 and moved over at the same time as Kilkenny’s Darragh Joyce to St Kilda. His progress was halted when he suffered a double leg break in action for Westmeath in the 2016 Leinster senior football semi-final against Dublin.

Connellan then recovered and lined out for St Kilda’s affiliate club Sandringham in the Victorian Football League, along with making his first-team debut in February in the pre-season AFLX tournament.

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