And the hurling award winners are...
Regardless of Saturday night, Tony Kelly was the standout player of the year in this category. Mobile, fluent, influential. Shane O’Donnell’s minor intervention over the weekend put him in the race, but Kelly dominated the season.
Cork goalkeeper Anthony Nash was more influential than any other player in this year’s championship, whether it was scoring goals and points or sparking debate about how the game should be played.
It’s sixty-five years since the Déise won a minor All-Ireland title, but their successful team still remembered to walk the cup across the bridge into Waterford city when they won this year’s Irish Press Cup.
A few contenders but the All-Ireland final replay was one of those games that became an event. When was the last time you saw an All-Ireland final finish with three goals? Or start with three goals? It was still alive in injury-time. Extraordinarily.
We won’t repeat it in detail but a funny exchange between Shane O’Donnell (@townhurler) and Ruby Walsh (@Ruby_Walsh) has been traced back to the hacking skills of @PodgeCollins , who is not above using another man’s smartphone, apparently.
A couple of hours before the All-Ireland final replay the news filtered through that Shane O’Donnell would start for Clare instead of Darach Honan. Which was about the same time O’Donnell found out, remarkably enough.
Davy Fitzgerald gets the crown here, not so much for the sweeper he played earlier in the year, but the fact that he abandoned that system for the All-Ireland final. That’s more of an achievement than it appears: they’d relied on a screen for the full-back line in earlier games but went bald-headed for glory in the final and were rewarded.
It can only be . . . Tony Browne played this season in the championship. You can make all the arguments you want about sports science and nutrition. It’s a portrait in the attic. It has to be.
Did you see the Cork hurlers’ All-Ireland final tracksuit tops? Seriously, if they’d had CCCP on them they couldn’t have been cooler.
Interesting one. All things considered, given that the point was on, that it was late in an All-Ireland final (replay), that a miss might have been fatal to his team’s chances, that the finish was so assured against the outstanding keeper of the year, Conor McGrath’s goal last Saturday is our selection.
Not the demise of the Cats, and not Tipp’s early exit either. Antrim beating Wexford in U21 hurling was the kind of shock that makes you wish for a time travelling machine that would take you back to the morning of the game. Eighty to one, they were . .
Good competition for this one. Cork’s Conor Lehane produced a kill-and-pivot point in the first half against Dublin which was instant control of the did-he-really-do-that kind. Podge Collins’ second-half point against Cork in the All-Ireland final, though, gets the nod. Exceptional, particularly given the circumstances. We’ll give Podge the double-whammy of point of the year as well, as a consequence.
Sorry, Domhnall.
What better time to get your first inter-county score than falling over the sideline in injury-time in the All-Ireland final? Domhnall O’Donovan’s stats (shots: 1; scores: 1) don’t tell the whole story. He saved Clare’s season.
Asked at the Cork hurlers’ press conference ahead of the replay if he would have fancied being in O’Donovan’s shoes, Cork no. 4 Conor O’Sullivan said: “I would have clung that. No hassle at all.”
During Waterford and Kilkenny’s epic struggle in the qualifiers Waterford’s Kevin Moran was down on his haunches retching a couple of times. A good way to divert opposition runners, if you think about it.
Michael Ryan revealed that at half-time in Waterford versus Offaly, he and his colleagues in the management team had told the Deise hurlers “the facts of life”.
None of the players referred to Mummy and Daddy loving each other very much, which was just as well, as ...
The Waterford players declared no confidence in Michael Ryan, above, during a meeting one Sunday in a hotel near the city.
The problem was, their minors were winning through to a first All-Ireland final in over 20 years at more or less the same time. Little wonder people said their timing lacked a certain something.
The Limerick minors might have been playing in the All-Ireland minor decider, but you know what happened there (see below for details).
Hawk-Eye, pictured, didn’t cover itself in glory with the All-Ireland minor hurling semi-final; we learned later it was ‘set for football’. Isn’t everything?
Jimmy Barry-Murphy charmed an entirely new generation of GAA journalists with his effortless style this year.
Does anyone enforce the steps rule any more?
I only ask because in every game attended this year there seemed to be at least one player getting into double-digits with his steps. I’m not looking for them to be sent off or anything, but . . .
There weren’t eighty thousand in Nowlan Park for Tipp-Kilkenny, and neither of them made it to September, but it was clear the Kilkenny support wanted to pay tribute to the team that had entertained them for so long.
The abuse dished out to referee Barry Kelly after the Cork-Kilkenny game by people who should have known a lot better.
Limerick were only waiting 16 years for a Munster title but you wouldn’t have known that by the pitch invasion after they beat Cork in the Munster hurling final.
Couldn’t see the green of the grass for the green of the jerseys. Watch out in case you injure a player, though.
The nation’s referees issued three significant red cards, in the Limerick-Cork, Cork-Kilkenny and Cork-Dublin games.
Of course, after all the talk for years about enforcing the rules, when they are enforced what happens?
Everyone goes mad.
The Cork supporters who decided it was too much bother to go along to welcome their players home last Sunday. You were happy to go to Croke Park . . .
A much-contested garland, we break with tradition this year and award the crown to Patrick O’Mahony, of Cork, – the panellist showed a superb tight-around-the-sides style early in the season, and breaks out of the pack with the winner.
