John Fogarty: Ten things you didn't know about GAA's All-Stars selection

The PwC All-Stars nominations will be revealed later this week. The selection process is kept under wraps but here are 10 things that can be revealed

The PwC GAA GPA All Star awards at the Convention Centre in Dublin. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

The PwC All-Stars nominations will be revealed later this week. In the 50th year of the scheme, GAA correspondents and journalists will gather in Croke Park to shortlist the 45 in each code as well as the three best senior and young players of the year. They will reconvene in December to cut those lists by a third into teams.

The selection process is kept under wraps but here are 10 things that can be revealed:

The homework is done.

Selectors are asked to furnish their 45s and 15s prior to the meetings. It streamlines as it encourages independent thinking before the rights and wrongs of their picks are debated. Choosing nominations is often treated as seriously as identifying recipients. Only in a few counties are All-Ireland medals currency. All-Stars are more widely accepted and for that reason distributing them is done with care.

Players pick their best peer.

While the shortlist of three (or four) is the responsibility of the selection committee, since the GAA and GPA amalgamated their awards 10 years ago, the players are asked to pick the best from that trio (or quartet). The vote is now done by proportional representation after thrice All-Ireland winners (Dublin on two occasions and Tipp on one) saw their vote split and others win (Lee Keegan and Austin Gleeson 2016, Andy Moran ‘17).

Debate can be territorial.

And with good reason given that the spread of journalists incorporates several who are based outside Dublin. For instance, three of the 15 on the football committee live in Ulster and they would have been at the provincial championship matches as others were watching Paudie Clifford run rampage through the Munster competition. Getting the balance right is essential as is weighting the opposition that players are facing.

Journalists are best placed to make the calls.

We would say that, wouldn’t we? It’s often disputed that journalists are best placed to pick the best players but the Powerscreen episode when the players chose themselves is not something the GAA will want to return to in a hurry. That the All-Stars can often be a subjective exercise seems to be lost on people but if what the GAA markets is true and nothing beats being there, then those whose job it is to be in attendance and who are more likely to be dispassionate are best placed.

But it’s getting tougher to judge both.

The All-Stars steering committee comprises eight journalists, seven who sit on both selection bodies. The concentrated nature of the championships these last two years has meant more games clashing. For instance, this column attended almost twice as many hurling championship matches this summer. Thank heavens for the record button.

The president decides a split vote.

GAA president Larry McCarthy. In the event a vote is tied the president has the responsibility of breaking it.  Picture: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

GAA president Larry McCarthy will preside over this week’s meetings as his predecessors have done in the past. When they are available, the director general is charged with acting as chair. They do not have a vote but in the event there is an equal number of selectors in attendance and the vote is tied, they have the responsibility of breaking it. It has happened.

The league is considered.

Up to the pandemic, journalists had been asked to compile their top performers in the league as a reference point for the selection process later in the year. That proposal came from the steering committee but as the league was fragmented in 2020 and played over a shorter period this season it was not done. But that is not to say what happened in the secondary competition won’t be considered.

Positions are fluid.

In 2018, the steering committee voted to allow an outfield player be chosen for an award in an area other than the one in which they were nominated. The decision was taken to reflect the fluidity of both games but it was a means to ensuring the correct 45 were selected — it’s not every year there are as many good backs as forwards and vice versa. Getting the right 15 is a matter for December. Besides, flexibility adds to the intrigue.

Ten most common words/phrases in All-Stars meetings.

“Body of work”. “Through the chair”. “I would have to disagree with…” “Can we put this to a vote?” “Who will make an argument for [insert player’s name]?” “We have four names for two positions”. “Optics”. “We can revisit that later”. “He played in midfield more than anywhere else”. “But who did they beat, really?”

There is safety in numbers.

“Under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent,” wrote James Surowiecki in his renowned book The Wisdom of Crowds. He may not have All-Stars committees in mind exactly but our own blushes have been often spared by the research and arguments fellow journalists have brought to the table.

Football’s future may yet find a compromise

Ulster secretary Brian McAvoy envisages the answer lies in the provinces, the possible solution manifesting itself as Connacht, Leinster, Munster, and Ulster being completely or partially transformed from knockout competitions to round-robin. Photo by Oliver McVeigh/Sportsfile

Well, nobody can say the Gaelic Players Association (GPA) are slow out on the traps this time around.

So often last minute in their previous attempts, be they full or half-hearted, to influence Congress votes, they have already been clear in what is expected to be confirmed at their national executive committee meeting later this week: the league as championship option for the 2022 season is the overwhelming choice of footballers.

As the GPA requests that players lobby their county board officials to endorse proposal B, the vast majority of senior inter-county managers will be doing the same ahead of the vote at Special Congress in Croke Park on October 23.

But it is clear that the motion is in need of some improving. The national fixtures task force chairman Eddie Sullivan acknowledged that too. And as Ulster secretary Brian McAvoy explained in these pages on Saturday, there are some glaring anomalies.

He supposed: “You are in Division 3 but end up being relegated to Division 4. You then end up winning the Tailteann Cup. Not only are you then going to get out of Division 4, you’re going to be promoted to Division 2. How in the name of God could people come up with that?” And he continued: “Under the B proposal, the 25th ranked team in the country (Division 4 winners) is still going to be playing in the last 10 in the championship.”

McAvoy envisages the answer lies in the provinces, the possible solution manifesting itself as Connacht, Leinster, Munster, and Ulster being completely or partially transformed from knockout competitions to round-robin.

A few more games, particularly if one of them is a home clash, will be sweet music for the county boards who already anticipate the split season will prompt savings. So long as teams are guaranteed the same number of games, a compromise may yet be met and the future of the All-Ireland SFC yet to reveal itself.

Wayne McNamara’s love for Adare is supreme

CALL OF DUTY: Adare’s Wayne McNamara chases down Patrickswell’s Diarmaid Byrnes in Sunday’s Limerick SHC quarter-final at the Gaelic Grounds. McNamara is based in Abu Dhabi for work. Picture: Brendan Gleeson

Coming off as he did with three minutes to go in Sunday’s Limerick SHC quarter-final, Adare’s Wayne McNamara could’ve been forgiven for thinking about booking a flight home for the semi-final against Na Piarsaigh.

Adare were three points up and Patrickswell looked a beaten docket to everyone bar Jason Gillane who reeled off four points to steal a last-four spot for The ‘Well and end McNamara’s globetrotting.

Nevertheless, the commitment shown by the former Limerick half-back these past six weeks should be acknowledged. The 35-year-old, who retired from inter-county hurling two years before the county claimed their 2018 All-Ireland SHC title, has been commuting from Abu Dhabi where he has been working as a lead engineer with Hitachi ABB Power Grids since 2019.

McNamara returned home for a month in August, which coincided with him seeing his club-mate Declan Hannon lift the Liam MacCarthy Cup for a third time as well as the first round of the Limerick SHC when they beat Monaleen. He later came back for the win over Kildimo-Pallaskenry before this past weekend’s quarter-final.

McNamara’s story is not unique — we’re reminded of former Waterford footballer Shane Briggs coming back week after week to play for Ballinacourty and ex-Donegal goalkeeper Paul Durcan returning for Ballyboden St Enda’s in 2015 — but in these stricken times it highlights the love for one’s club can never be underestimated.

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