Aaron Connolly signs for League One side Leyton Orient
The Galway native departed fellow London outfit Millwall following a short-term spell at the conclusion of the Championship season in May.
But the 25-year-old will now drop down a level to the English third tier for next season, with Orient having missed out on promotion to the Championship via the play-offs at the end of the previous campaign.
However, Connolly said he is relishing the opportunity to join up with Richie Wellens' squad after a stop-start period in his career that has seen him play for Hull City, Sunderland and Millwall since leaving Brighton in the summer of 2023.
"I'm buzzing to be here. I met with the gaffer last Monday, and straight away we both wanted to get it done," he told Leyton Orient's club website.
"I'm delighted to be here, and the manager was a main factor in me coming here. I know the club just missed out on promotion last year, but we're hoping to go one better this year.
"I had my first session today, and I'm delighted that the transfer is done now. It happened quite quickly, which is always good for a player."
Orient head coach Wellens said he previously tried to sign Connolly when he was managing Swindon.
"He's talented, quick, good on the ball and skilful," he said.
"He's got an eye for goal, and he scored twice on his Premier League debut for Brighton. The ability is all there, and when I met him recently I got a really good vibe off him. I sense that there is a burning desire for him to do well.
"If we can get Aaron firing, I have absolutely no doubt in his abilities."
Connolly's won the last of nine senior caps for Ireland was a 12-minute cameo against France during a Euro 2024 qualifier in September 2023.
The following year, he opened up about his struggles with alcohol, admitting that his Premier League breakthrough at Brighton and Hove Albion led to five years of off-the-field turmoil, having burst on to the scene in October 2019 when he scored a sensational brace in a 3-0 victory against Tottenham Hotspur as a 19-year-old.
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Irish Times
an hour ago
- Irish Times
Vibes and victories: how Robbie Brennan put smiles on Meath faces
Everyone you talk to about Robbie Brennan starts in the same place. Great guy. Great fun. A football nut, yes. But a people person, first and final. Shane Walsh didn't know him at all in the summer of 2023. Galway were still in the championship all the way to the All-Ireland final but shortly after losing to Kerry, Walsh was heading to meet the Kilmacud Crokes manager. He knew his name was Robbie Brennan and that the Crokes boys called him Baggio. But that was about all he had to go on. 'I didn't know what to expect,' Walsh says. 'I'd seen a picture of him but all I really knew was I was going for coffee with this lad Baggio. And straight away, I sat down and he cracked a joke about the All-Ireland. 'He always calls me Gorgeous. That's his line for me. The Galway lads caught on to it one day. I answered the phone to him and said, 'Well Baggio' and he was there, 'Ah, Gorgeous, it's yourself!' That would be Robbie, it would be all about giving you a laugh and having the crack. 'He'd be taking the piss out of you saying, 'When are you coming down to training? I have 5,000 fans there every night thinking you're going to be there.' He has that kind of loveable rogue thing. He could say anything to you but at the same time, you'd do anything for him.' The Baggio thing, we may as well get out of the way quickly. On July 17th, 1994, Kilmacud Crokes were playing a match on the same day as the World Cup final. Robbie Brennan was the Crokes penalty taker and on that particular day, he was the Crokes penalty misser. Everyone repaired to the clubhouse afterwards to watch Italy take on Brazil and ... you can fill in the rest yourself. There's much more to Robbie 'Baggio' Brennan than a missed penalty. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho He's been Baggio ever since. He likes to say that he responds to it quicker than if somebody calls him Robbie. He hasn't tweeted for well over five years but when he did, his handle was @baggio132. 'I'd say it will be on the headstone,' he reckons. The nickname is a very Robbie Brennan thing. No point taking yourself too seriously, nothing lost in having a laugh at yourself. It has been a handy attitude to have on his side throughout a football career that frequently found him flitting between clubs and communities. In Meath , where he spent his early years and in Dublin, where he grew up. Brennan has always had a kind of dual nationality. His father Paddy was the captain of the 1974 Meath intermediate champions St Johns, later to become Wolfe Tones. When the family moved to Dublin soon after, he was the only kid in Kilmacud wearing a Meath jersey. On the night of his unveiling as Meath manager, he told the story of having to go to Colm O'Rourke's sports shop in Navan Shopping Centre to get said Meath jersey, whereupon his dad questioned O'Rourke on why he never used his right foot any more. So there has always been Meath football in Brennan's life, a kind of Miwadi in his Dublin water. When he won a Dublin club title in 1998 with Kilmacud, one of their games in Leinster was against St Peter's of Dunboyne. Brennan scored two points that day at full-forward. In goals for Dunboyne was his future brother-in-law, David Gallagher. By 2005, Brennan had switched sides and was playing full-forward for Dunboyne, having married Liz, David's sister. When they won the Meath championship that year, there was nothing surer than they would meet Dublin champions Kilmacud in Leinster. They did and duly got hammered. St Peter's have won three county titles in their history. They've run into Kilmacud each time. Robbie Brennan and Shane Walsh at a match between Cuala and Kilmacud Crokes in 2024. Photograph: Tom Maher/Inpho Incredibly, Brennan has been involved in all three encounters, first as a player for Crokes, then a player for Dunboyne and finally as the Crokes manager in 2018. Not so much a foot in both camps as a life in both worlds. When he was managing Crokes to Dublin titles, he was taking underage teams in Dunboyne. Nobody fell out with him, nobody thought it weird. 'To us, it was a natural fit,' says Shane McEntee, clubmate with Dunboyne and still a Meath footballer until earlier this year. 'We would have seen Robbie as Meath and as Dunboyne, even though he grew up with Kilmacud. He was very obviously intent on managing from very early on. 'I would have helped him out with a minor team at one stage and he had done a few years with Kilmacud by then. You could just tell he was very modern, very tactically-minded. He's very analytical about football. His trajectory was always headed towards a high level.' Through it all, his good humour and easy manner was his calling card. He managed St Sylvester's in Malahide, then teamed up with Gabriel Bannigan at Kilmacud before taking the reins himself in 2018. Crokes had gone eight years without a Dublin title at that stage and hadn't so much as been to a county final since 2012. 'He wouldn't have been hands-on at all under Gabriel,' says Paul Mannion. 'When he took it on himself, we had gone through years of massive underperformance. Disappointing results, knocked out early, didn't get close to a final really. For us, for where we were at that time, Robbie's approach really worked for us. Robbie Brennan enjoyed plenty of success with Kilmacud Crokes. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho 'It's almost like he put an arm around the team. I don't think the team needed someone to be coming in cracking the whip in the way other managers might have done. He sensed that probably and felt he just needed to come in and be himself. He just has that jovial kind of spirit to him.' Mannion's first response when asked what he thinks of when he thinks of Brennan is much the same as Walsh and McEntee. 'A good friend, first off,' he says. 'Not the most typical in that sense when it comes to a manager. He's a friend to all of us. Some managers like to keep their distance and that works for them. But that's not him. What works for Robbie is probably the opposite.' But if that's all he was, it wouldn't be enough. Brennan led Kilmacud to four Dublin titles in six years, including the first three-in-a-row in the club's history. In 55 years of the Leinster club championship, he's the only manager to oversee a three-in-a-row. Back-to-back All-Ireland finals, the second ending with Crokes on the Hogan Stand. You need more than good vibes and a bit of slagging to build that kind of CV. Having the players helps, clearly. Crokes had the likes of Mannion, Rory O'Carroll and Craig Dias about the place before Walsh ever set foot in Stillorgan. Cian O'Sullivan was around for a while but no sooner had he retired than Theo Clancy came through. But for all that they had the ingredients, they needed Brennan to convince them they were worthy of the plate. 'I remember meeting him in early 2021,' Mannion says. 'We had the bad loss to Mullinalaghta in 2018 and then early exits from the Dublin championship over the next couple of years. We were having a chat about the plan for the year and he was like, 'I fully believe there's an All-Ireland in this group.' 'We went on to lose the final to Kilcoo at the end of that season and won it the following year. But when he said it to me that time, with the losses we'd had and how inconsistent we'd been, I remember thinking that I just personally didn't see it at all. He was just convinced there was an All-Ireland there when, truthfully, I don't think the players ourselves saw that at all.' Meath's Shane McEntee against Galway in 2022. Photograph: Ben Brady/Inpho The parallels with what Meath have achieved under Brennan this summer are obvious. This weekend two years ago, they were in the Tailteann Cup final. Anyone suggesting they'd go from there to beating Kerry, Dublin and Galway in the 2025 championship would have been laughed out of Croke Park that day. Yet here they are. McEntee would have dearly loved to be part of it. He's still only 31 and was the Meath captain as recently as 2022 so age is no barrier. But he's had two back surgeries in recent years and however willing the spirit, the body won't play ball. Brennan had him in late last year as part of the extended panel but when time came to pare it back ahead of the league, McEntee didn't make the cut. Couldn't, basically. It means he has a unique perspective on the Meath season under the new manager. McEntee was there for those initial couple of months when Brennan was bedding in, setting a tone and unifying the group. He sat in the team meetings and listened as the new man set about them. It was the middle of the winter slog and the sports-and-conditioning guys were working on their bodies. But Brennan knew that unless they had belief in what was possible, all the gym work in the world was pointless. 'Robbie makes fellas feel very good in themselves,' McEntee says. 'He's really positive, really upbeat. He made a comment about Jordan [Morris] early in the year while I was sitting there. He was talking about the level he thinks Jordan is at, that he's up there with the top forwards in the country. 'That's not really an Irish thing. It's not really a GAA thing to make these big brash statements. And having seen Jordan play a lot, I could see what he was getting at. But he has reached new heights this year. He has proved Robbie right. Meath manager Robbie Brennan hopes his team can overcome Donegal in an All-Ireland semi-final this weekend. Photograph: Morgan Treacy/Inpho 'I think Robbie was saying that based on his potential more so than his consistent intercounty form to that point. But there could well be a correlation there between the amount Robbie was praising him and the level of confidence he's playing with. Because Jordy has obviously been phenomenal this year.' Walsh was standing at the other end of Croke Park a fortnight ago as Meath ate the final minute before the hooter. He reckons he was resigned to Galway's fate before the rest of them – he didn't hold out much hope of a Brennan team mismanaging the dying seconds. They didn't get to see each other on the pitch but his phone pinged afterwards with 'a lovely message' from his old boss. 'For a big fella, he's well able to shed a tear,' Walsh says. 'But he has a winning mentality. I don't know if that comes from him rubbing off on players or players rubbing off on him. But whatever it is, he's about winning. He's not in it for a lovely story about Meath getting to a quarter-final or a semi-final. He's in it for the main thing. 'And you can see he has it with the Meath lads. They have that energy with him. When they beat us the last day, you could see loads of them running over to him and celebrating with him. And a lot of that I'm sure is down to the belief he's instilled in them. He'd make you feel 10ft tall.'
Irish Examiner
4 hours ago
- Irish Examiner
How Robbie Brennan's slick man-management awakened the Meath sleeping giant
Tomas Ó Sé was thinking about Meath, and how they've gone from one end of the zeroes/heroes spectrum to the other in a matter of months, and found himself flummoxed. "I tried to figure it out during the week, I don't know what's gone on in Meath," said Ó Sé. "How can they suddenly be properly and really deserving of being in an All-Ireland semi-final? "Everyone has been judging Meath on the last number of years, and what's been there for the last number of years, and there has been nothing in terms of what we're seeing right now." The Kerry man probably doesn't need to look a whole pile further than Robbie Brennan for his answer. It was new manager Brennan that convinced Bryan Menton to come out of retirement, having not played since 2022. Seamus Lavin was even longer away, since 2021, yet both have started all 15 of Meath's League and Championship games this year. Jack Flynn, Menton's midfield partner all year until a recent injury, is in a similar boat, coaxed back after missing much of 2024. Then there's Sean Rafferty, arguably the Meath player most likely to end the county's 17-year wait for an All-Star. He hadn't played a League or Championship game before Brennan came in but has started 14 of the 15 games. Conor Duke's stats are exactly the same as Rafferty's. Ruairí Kinsella didn't start a Championship game for Meath last year either but has lined out in all eight this year. The list goes on. It all comes back to Brennan and his slick man management. "I've been living in Meath a long time and I've played and was lucky enough to win a championship in Meath," said the Dunboyne resident. "So with all of that going on, and I'd be at so many of the matches watching the games, whether Dunboyne were in them or not, I certainly knew the talent was there and I think that was probably the most exciting part of it. "It was a case of, could you get in and awaken the sleeping giant, and so far we have." Brennan rose to national prominence for his work with Kilmacud Crokes, in Dublin, guiding them to county, provincial and national successes. But as the son of a Meath man from Kilberry, just north of Navan, he was on his father Paddy's shoulders for the Centenary Cup success of 1984, the first trophy won in the Sean Boylan era. The family's decision to relocate to south Dublin for work purposes was what brought him to the capital, and Crokes, before Brennan U-turned when older, marrying Liz Gallagher, the sister of former Meath goalkeeper David Gallagher, and settling in Dunboyne. Asked if he sees himself as a Meath man or a Dub, Brennan shot back instantly: "Meath." Supporting Dublin wasn't really an option. "It was drilled into me, so it was never any other way," he said of his Meath-ness. "There were a lot of dark days then when you're living in Dublin, you're involved in Kilmacud, and Meath aren't winning and Dublin are starting to win and you're having to go back to the clubhouse and stuff like that. "I'm living in Dunboyne for 20-odd years so I'm more Meath now if there was ever any doubt. The 7/2 for the Dublin job isn't a good price I'd say looking at it!" Brennan has a long way to go to enjoy the same legendary status within Meath as Dunboyne neighbour Boylan but he may just be getting there. In any other year, beating Dublin, Kerry, Cork and Galway in the Championship would probably have already snagged the Sam Maguire Cup. But they've still got Donegal to go on Sunday. Perhaps they'll get a crack at Kerry or Tyrone then after that. Brennan's approach has been a simple one - let the players express themselves. Sure, Meath have got praise for their tactical acumen this year but it was probably more insightful that he described Jordan Morris losing the ball in attack against Galway last time as a 'creative turnover'. Those are always allowed, even encouraged. "What do we say? The more you control, the less you can create. It's that kind of approach," said Brennan. "They're not spoon-fed. It's exactly what we did in Kilmacud, we just allowed the leaders to take over and we let the group kind of develop. "It's happened way quicker (in Meath) than even I thought it might but there's some exceptional leaders in it, not just obviously Eoghan (Frayne) and Ciaran (Caulfield) as captain and vice-captain. They're all grabbing it with both hands." Despite it all, they'll be written off by pretty much everybody when the ball is thrown in tomorrow. "We'll still come in as underdogs and that's good for us," said Brennan. "Donegal are probably one of, if not the favourites for the Championship, and have been for a long time. I think that'll suit us fine coming in again. We don't have to change much."
The Irish Sun
4 hours ago
- The Irish Sun
‘Tonight was for her' – Boxer on Katie Taylor vs Amanda Serrano 3 pays tribute to tragic Georgia O'Connor after win
ELLIE SCOTNEY paid an emotional tribute to Georgia O'Connor, following her win on the undercard of Katie Taylor vs Amanda Serrano 3. The English fighter became unified super bantemweight champion with a stylish decision win over Yamileth Mercado at MSG. Advertisement 2 Ellie Scotney is declared the winner by unanimous decision against Yamileth Mercado Credit: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile 2 She paid tribute to Georgia O'Connor after the fight Credit: PA And speaking after the fight, Scotney paid tribute to her friend Georgia O'Connor. O'Connor - a talented boxer herself - tragically died from cancer back in May, with Scotney donning a shirt with her likeness during the weigh-in. She said: "I have had a real testing few months. As everybody knows, I lost my dear friend Georgia so tonight is for her. "Her dad is over there and I'd like everyone to give her a round of applause. Advertisement Read More on Katie Taylor "She was 25 years old, she was a fighter, and she lost her battle to cancer but tonight I made sure her name was remembered in Madison Square Garden." Saturday morning's action was headlined by the eagerly anticipated trilogy bout pitting Taylor, 39, once again put her undisputed super lightweight belts on the line against her long time rival in the main event of the all-female card. The Bray woman holds a 2-0 advantage over the 36-year-old having beaten her in MSG in April 2022 and the AT&T Stadium last November. Advertisement Most read in Boxing The latter has been contested by the Puerto Rican, who has repeatedly complained about supposed head butts which left her bloody. Meanwhile, Taylor was named unanimous decision victor despite having a point deducted for that very offense, UK Netflix Users Warned: £1,000 Fine for Watching Live Events Without a TV Licence The crowd in Texas booed the decision while Serrano remains adamant that she won. Katie Taylor Advertisement She said: 'I have my own opinion about the stuff that Amanda has been saying on our team, but the fact is I am 2-0 against her. "Opinions are opinions, but facts are facts and you can't get away from those facts. And yeah, I guess I'm just tired of the complaining and the whining from Amanda's team. "I'm going into this fight already beating Amanda and I plan to stay beating her. I plan to stay 3-0 come this Friday night. 'I feel like people haven't seen the best me yet and I can't wait to showcase that on Friday night. Advertisement "I can definitely make the fight a lot easier for myself and I just can't wait to step in there now and actually perform. "I know that I can perform and produce the best performance of my career.'
