Take a bow, unsung heroes

TYPICAL, no-one has ever bothered to pick the greatest team of (allegedly) under-rated players of all times in the games of the Gael.

To make this team, a candidate must be regularly described in dispatches as “not getting the full credit he deserves”.

No harm either if you can add “there is much more to his game than you realise”. And, in passing, a sly dig in the ribs to “the marquee names in the team who get all the headlines — but without this man, they’d be nothing”.

What matter that some of them have multiple All Stars and more All-Ireland medals than they could ever hope to count — once you enter the public consciousness as an underrated player, it’s almost impossible to get out of it, and we’re not in the mood to prompt an exodus. We’ve a team to pick, for God’s sake, and it’s hard enough to make 15 at the best of times.

I will almost certainly have left somebody out. Even unsung heroes have unsung heroes. Forgive us our dual trespasses, and the occasional All-Star style juxtaposition.

UNSUNG HEROES: James McGarry (Kilkenny); Paudie Lynch (Kerry), Kevin Cahill (Mayo), Tony Scullion (Derry); Liam Doyle (Clare), Tommy Griffin (Kerry), Pat Holmes (Mayo); Seamus Scanlon (Kerry), Kalum King (Down); Donnacha Walsh (Kerry), Mark Poland (Down), BonnerMaher (Tipperary); Aidan Fogarty(Kilkenny), Martin Comerford (Kilkenny), John Egan (captain, Kerry) .