Teddy McCarthy: If Limerick got 15 All-Stars it wouldn’t have been a surprise
Limerick's Tom Morrissey was one of 12 Treaty hurlers awarded All-Stars. Picture: INPHO/Morgan Treacy
Cork legend Teddy McCarthy has no complaints with the decision not to award any of the current team with All-Stars this year.
Cork became the first All-Ireland runners-up in either football or hurling in the 50 years of the awards scheme not to pick up an award.
However, McCarthy believes that call made by the selection committee at their meeting in Croke Park on Wednesday morning was justified.
The 1990 double All-Ireland winner, who won a football All-Star in 1990, believes the three Limerick players who weren’t chosen - Nickie Quaid, Dan Morrissey and Aaron Gillane - had more reason to be upset about not being included than any Cork hurler “Personally speaking, there should be 15 Limerick players in it. I don’t think anyone else justified their position more than their team. I don’t think Cork did enough consistently over the year to justify All-Stars.
“Obviously, you’d be disappointed but if there had been 15 Limerick players it wouldn’t have been a surprise. Obviously, Gillane will be disappointed and he came on as a substitute in one game (Munster final v Tipperary) but it is supposed to be a 24-man game.
“I think the selection committee hit it on the head. Limerick were miles ahead of everyone else, they’re out there on their own. I think it was a brave decision by the selection committee because it was the first time that I have ever seen an All-Stars team without a pat on the back and I would have no qualms about it.”
McCarthy accepts Cork players, including his fellow Sarsfields club man Jack O’Connor, would have been in the running for All-Stars prior to the final but he believes the defeat was so sizeable and chastening it had to be reflected in the best team of 2021.
“They were destroyed in the final, the scoreboard doesn’t lie. And they could have been beaten by more. It is what it is. I don’t think any Cork player did enough to justify an All-Star nor a player from any other county for that matter.”
McCarthy hopes Cork players don’t look at the snub as a means of motivation for 2022. “If they have to depend on that, I think they’re going the wrong way altogether. That shouldn’t be the case. Their objective is to try and beat Limerick, not an All-Stars team.
However, former Cork midfielder John Fenton believes it can be a rallying call for the team next season. Speaking to Ourgame.ie, he said: “The fact that Limerick have 12 on the team probably shows their dominance. I think there might be one or two Cork lads that will be disappointed that they didn’t get the nod but I suppose in all fairness it just proves how good Limerick have been over the year and the last couple of years and I think it will motivate a lot of Cork fellas next year to go one step further.
“An All-Star trophy, to me, is a fantastic honour. It’s a lovely boost to get at the end of the year. Okay, if you had a choice between an All-Star and an All-Ireland medal you’d obviously take the All-Ireland medal but Limerick are going to be there not only for Cork but for everyone else and I think it will motivate a lot of teams to up their game against them.”
Limerick manager John Kiely admitted the exclusion of Cork players was strange. “It is unusual, it has to be said,” he told . “For a team to be in an All-Ireland final and not to be acknowledged with one, or two or three or four or five, whatever it might be. Usually, you'd have multiples of them.
"But our focus is on our own group and the acknowledgment of their work and their achievement and their performance levels." He continued: "All-Stars are by their nature very divisive.”
On Twitter, Offaly legend Brian Whelahan humorously brought up his own misfortune of missing out on an All-Star in 1994 despite being picked as the Texaco hurler of the year. “Getting to a(n) All-Ireland final and your team not getting a(n) all-star award isn’t right, what’s next the player of the year not getting one either.”
