New Signing

[Philly]

22/12/2006,
Paul Donnelly joins County

John Ryan moved quickly to replace midfielder Stephen Cooling, who has moved to Waterford United with the signing of the versatile and experienced Paul Donnelly.

The Finglas native played his schoolboy football with Tolka Rovers and Rathoath Harps before joining Home Farm.

He departed for Leeds United in 1996 when aged sixteen and was a regular on their youths and reserve teams. Donnelly was capped several times for his country at under 15 and under 20 level, playing in the under 20 World Cup in Nigeria.

Paul returned to Ireland in 1999 and signed for St Patrick’s Athletic, where he remained for six seasons, making well over 100 starts. He spent the latter half of last season with Kilkenny City.

His favoured position is middle of midfield but is equally at home anywhere in the middle or in defence. Paul says he is delighted to put pen to paper for Kildare as he knows a number of County players and their reports on the club were very positive.

[steno]

Made 19 appearances last season for Kilkenny City.

[Philly]

Hopefully he is good.

Any St Pats fans or Kilkenny fans have any input on him?

[Kildare Lad]

My mate whos a pats fan said he is a good player, he was suprised that he came to County, as he thought he was premier quality..........

[steno]

Well time will tell.....

[KildareFan]

He played for the Irish Under 18 team that won the european championships in cyprus in 1998 with the likes of richard dunne and robbie keane. He actually scored a penalty in the deciding shoot out.

Supposedly had a great future ahead of him but he had terrible injuries that eventually saw leeds him go on a free. Did ok for Pat's but the fact that he has slipped from them to Kilkenny and on to us shows how far he has fallen. He certainly didn't look anything special in any of the games for kilkenny against us last season.