Who would make All-Stars club team?

The All-Stars dominated the media coverage of GAA activities over the last week, along with a sprinkling of provincial club action.

There wasn’t too much debate about the awards on a national level. The team went largely along expected lines.

The left corner-forward position was perhaps the least clearcut one, but when you look at the argument in favour of Louth’s Sam Mulroy it really does make perfect sense.

The Wee County’s talisman was outstanding as Louth claimed their first provincial title in 68 years. How could he be left out?

Yet, in the same vein, shouldn’t Galway’s Connacht win have earned them at least one All-Star? Rob Finnerty was the closest to it, but he was in direct competition with Mulroy for that place.

The influence resulting from impressive performances in the provinces has waned over the years. They matter, yes, but you’d need to be backing it up with at least another big showing at quarter-final or semi-final stage in the race for Sam Maguire.

Back in my day, we were already seeing the minimising of the relevance of the provincials. It probably dates back to 2001 and the introduction of the qualifiers.

2010 was remarkable as it was the first time a provincial champion had no players selected on the All-Star team. In fact, this dubious honour fell to both Roscommon and Meath in that year.

To be fair, it was a strange year in terms of results. None of the eight provincial finalists managed to advance to the All-Ireland semi-finals, so it was a year in which teams coming through the qualifiers dominated.

Still, ourselves and Meath had very valid cases for greater inclusion. The fact Donie Shine didn’t even get nominated for Young Footballer of the Year, in spite of probably the best individual display of the year in the Connacht final, was laughable. He was one of our two nominations for All-Stars, along with Cathal Cregg.

I never got too close to getting one. Perhaps, in 2010, I could have got a nomination. 2011 was my best year of football. I felt comfortable and ahead of any midfielder in the country that year, but we needed to progress further than we did as a team.

We lost to Tyrone in Croke Park in the last stage of the qualifiers that year. You’ve got to be putting in big performances at the latter stages of the All-Ireland to get an All-Star.

I’d have loved to have got to that level. Not particularly for myself, but it’s imagining the joy and pride it would bring to my family and club that would have driven me. Looking at Enda Smith winning our most recent All-Star a couple of years ago, you could see what a great honour it was for Boyle GAA and his family.

PARADOXICAL WORLD

The All-Stars exist in that almost paradoxical world where we know highlighting individuals goes against the ethos of team sport. Yet, at the same time, it can be a great motivating factor for players and source of enjoyable debate for supporters.

Putting the spotlight on individual success stories is an invaluable tool in terms of promoting the game and inspiring youngsters. With this in mind, I was delighted to see recent media posts highlighting the first year of All-Star awards for the club game in Roscommon LGFA.

Fair play to those involved. They’ve nominated 135 players across the senior, intermediate and junior championships with the winners set to be announced at a gala dinner on Friday night. I hope this initiative gets the support it deserves.

It can only be good for Roscommon LGFA. It’s an extra source of motivation for club players. Even if that just leads to a one per cent rise in performance levels across the board, that’s a big cumulative improvement in terms of pushing the standards higher and higher. That’s a rising tide that will raise county boats as well as club.

Maybe it’s something that we could see introduced on the men’s side too? In that vein of thinking, who would be on this year’s club All-Stars team? I didn’t get to see enough junior or intermediate championship games to make an informed judgement.

At senior level, I think there’s a strong argument to suggest an All-Star team would include players from just two teams. Here’s a stab at an All-Stars team from this year’s senior championship in Roscommon.

Conor Carroll (St. Brigid’s); Robbie Dolan (St. Brigid’s), Caelim Keogh (Pádraig Pearses), Mark Richardson (Pádraig Pearses); Ruaidhrí Fallon (St. Brigid’s), Brian Stack (St. Brigid’s), Conor Lohan (Pádraig Pearses); Conor Ryan (Pádraig Pearses), Eddie Nolan (St. Brigid’s); Paul McGrath (St. Brigid’s), Seán Canning (Pádraig Pearses), Jack Tumulty (Pádraig Pearses); Ben O’Carroll (St. Brigid’s), Bobby Nugent (St. Brigid’s), Eoin Colleran (Pádraig Pearses).

Picking this is different to the intercounty All-Stars where there’s a longer championship season. Players get a chance to push themselves into the spotlight at provincial level first before progressing to the round-robin and then knockout stages. Here, it really has to boil down to performances from the quarter-finals on.

Niall Heneghan from Michael Glaveys and Boyle’s Enda Smith were very good on beaten quarter-final teams. Then there were a few others on beaten semi-final teams who had a decent shout of making the cut, like Darren Nerney and David Rooney for St. Faithleachs, and Clann’s Ultan Harney, Tom Lennon and Paddy Gavin.

Yet, who could you take out from my team above to include one of those lads? Even within the finalists, there were others who had very good years, like Seán Trundle, Paul Carey and Hubert Darcy. Shane Cunnane didn’t exactly dominate midfield proceedings, but his excellent kickpassing played a huge role in deciding this year’s title, so he would be close to selection too.

While I’m at it, we may as well look at who’d win Footballer of the Year in the Roscommon Senior Football Championship. I think there’d be two each from Brigid’s and Pearses in contention — Brian Stack, Conor Carroll, Conor Ryan and Seán Canning.

Stack is our county’s best player. Keeping him fit is key to Brigid’s progression in Connacht and also to Roscommon’s hopes next year. He is at an elite level and if we can get some more of our top players up to his standards, Mark Dowd could have a great first year as Roscommon manager.

It’s unusual enough for a goalkeeper to be on a shortlist for Player of the Year but Conor Carroll’s level of performances across the season for Brigid’s means he can’t be ignored. I rate him very highly even in terms of the best ‘keepers across the country. Once again, Brigid’s must be counting their lucky stars for this guy to have moved into their club area.

Conor Ryan keeps rising to every challenge put in front of him. I watched him at U-20 level for Roscommon last year and I saw potential, but nothing to suggest he’d be having the sort of impact at senior club level that he’s had this year.

He was very good last year as Pearses won the title, but since the knockout stages commenced this year he has kicked on again. He’s the model player for the new rules — he's winning the long kickouts that have come back into fashion, and he’s a super kicker from long-range, taking advantage of the two-point arc.

Seán Canning is the biggest surprise for me in this list of top players in the championship. He contributed in last year’s Fahey Cup win for Pearses but was only on the periphery and very rarely started and finished games.

This year, his athleticism has improved hugely. He wins a huge amount of breaking ball. His biggest asset is his speed as he carries ball at defences, winning frees or setting up easy scores. It would be interesting to see if he’d be capable of bringing his game to intercounty level.

Of all those guys who’ve had superb seasons, I’d pluck for the Pearses midfielder, Ryan, as Player of the Year. I really hope we get to see him in action for the Rossies in Division One of the National Football League next year.