Anthony Daly: Amongst the heated debate, here is my All-Star team

Anthony Daly picks his All-Star XV ahead of the awards being announced tonight

Aaron Gillane would be unlucky to miss out on All-Star but Anthony Daly feels the competition in the full-forward line is so fierce he’d leave the Limerick man out. Picture: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile

On the day the All-Stars awards were presented in 1998, all the Clare lads got lunch-time flights from Shannon to Dublin. The women had hair and make-up appointments booked around the city not long after we landed and a handful of us spotted the perfect window of opportunity to have the craic amongst ourselves before the night really kicked off.

Back then, it was easy to lose yourself in the moment, to disconnect from everything else and just casually luxuriate in the company you were in. Mobile phones weren’t exactly common in 1998.

I had some kind of a yoke that resembled a brick and which you nearly had to roar into to be heard.

We were sitting in a huddle in the Leeson Lounge when, next thing, the door opened and the late and great Páidí Ó Sé popped his head in the door. He hadn’t a clue who we were but Páidí had an idea we were Clare hurlers; he had to considering how often we were in the media during that crazy summer.

He got our names fairly early in the conversation and he regaled us for the evening. He told us all the old classics. We were all cracking up. It was pure magic. The hours were flying by like minutes. Before we knew it, the bar was filling up with Friday evening work-crew. Eventually, one of the lads arrived in looking for us. ‘They’re calling us for the dinner,’ he said in a panic ‘ye better get a move on.’

We literally only had five minutes to sprint out the door, and hare upstairs in the Burlington hotel to get changed. I was lucky I had shaved myself that morning. I ducked in and out of the shower within about ten seconds. I fired on the monkey suit and tore downstairs like a lunatic, worse for wear.

Ger Loughnane could see we were all over the place. ‘Jesus,’ he said, ‘ye’ll fall and get killed going up onto the stage.’

That time, the All-Stars were called out before the dinner, so I knocked back two cups of coffee to try and straighten myself up before accepting my All-Star.

I was nominated on six occasions — 1993, 1994, 1995, 1997, 1998 and 1999 but that 1998 night was the standout memory. The craic was always deadly, especially when you could wind up in anyone’s company.

Gregory O’Kane from Antrim was nominated one year and it was obvious he felt kind of lost early on in the evening when he was the only hurler from the north at the awards. We made sure he wasn’t on his own and the Clare crew looked after him all night, with ‘looked after’ being a loosely termed phrase.

I remember being in a similar position in 1993 and 1994 but you never felt isolated because there was always someone to talk to, hurlers or footballers.

You’d often have heard stories about footballers having words with other footballers, stoking up the embers of old fires that would have blazed that summer. Hurlers had just as many, if not more, skirmishes during the championship but I never heard of any of that stuff carrying over into All-Stars nights.

I always really looked forward to the event. The one time I didn’t go, in 1997, I had a solid excuse; Clarecastle were playing Patrickswell in the Munster club final two days later.

I rang Loughnane and asked him if he could find out if I had won an award. If I hadn’t, I didn’t see how I could justify going up to Dublin, especially when I wouldn’t have been able to fully switch off and enjoy the evening.

I knew Ger ‘Sparrow’ O’Loughlin was receiving an award, so I didn’t see any point in two of us missing training before one of the biggest games in the club’s history.

On the Wednesday, Loughnane rang. ‘Dalo, I’ve good and bad news,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you the good news first — you can train with the club on Friday.’ There were a few eyebrows raised when I didn’t show, with an empty seat where the captain of the All-Ireland champions was supposed to be sitting. It would have been easy for some to portray it as sour grapes but that couldn’t have been further from the truth; I’d have given anything to have been there in different circumstances.

Even when I finished playing, the fun never stopped and you’d always find an angle somewhere. In my last year as Dublin manager in 2014, I was invited to the awards night. Kilkenny had won all before them that year — Walsh Cup, league, Leinster and All-Ireland. Tipp didn’t win anything, but they got more All-Stars, seven to Kilkenny’s six.

I was walking to the Convention Centre when I ran into Brian Cody. ‘Did you hear that team,’ he said to me.

‘I did Brian,’ I said. ‘Did you ever hear the bate of it? Scandalous stuff.’

I was pretending to be dead serious, but I was only winding Cody up. I was enjoying getting him going. To get him even more fired up, I started throwing a few harmless daggers into a couple of journalists on the selection panel, even though I more or less agreed with their selection.

‘They haven’t a clue,’ said Cody.

There will always be heated debate surrounding All-Star teams. It will be no different with this evening’s selection, but I don’t see too many hard-luck stories with the team set to be announced.

On the side I’ve selected (see below), you could certainly make a case for Jamie Barron, Calum Lyons, and Shane McNulty (Waterford), Barry Nash, Aaron Gillane, and Declan Hannon (Limerick) and Brian Concannon (Galway).

I’m sure Gillane will be selected. If I was a manager and there was a transfer market, Gillane is the first player I’d buy. He is a savage operator, but it’s also hard to argue against the guys I’ve chosen below in the full-forward line. Then again, if Gillane is selected, Tony Kelly could be switched to midfield and Will O’Donoghue could lose out. Inevitably, someone always does.

Even though everyone is there to enjoy themselves, that kind of discussion also frames a huge part of the night, especially when some lads are clearly hurt and disappointed at being excluded. But all that stuff has been siphoned out of the event now anyway with it being a virtual gig. The debate now will just rage like an out-of-control machine on social media and WhatsApp. It’s hugely different times now but, for old time’s sake, I might get a notion and decide to tog out for the night that’s in it; root out the tux, dust it down, slip it on and sit down with a glass of wine to watch the awards.

And raise a toast to Páidí.

Anthony Daly's All-Star team: Nickie Quaid (Limerick); Seán Finn (Limerick), Dan Morrissey (Limerick); Daithí Burke (Galway); Diarmaid Byrnes (Limerick), Tadgh de Búrca (Waterford), Kyle Hayes (Limerick); Cian Lynch (Limerick), Will O'Donoghue (Limerick); Gearoid Hegarty (Limerick), TJ Reid (Kilkenny), Tom Morrissey (Limerick); Tony Kelly (Clare), Austin Gleeson (Waterford), Stephen Bennett (Waterford).