Footballers of the Year forming a formidable team
EAST KERRY GAA ALL STARS 2019
ON Friday night - around about 11pm - the 10th East Kerry GAA Footballer of the Championship will be named and honoured.
He will be a footballer chosen for his outstanding individual performances in the 2019 O’Donoghue Cup, but also recognised as a man who was the consummate team player in the East Kerry SFC.
He may or may be a current or former Kerry senior footballer: if he is or was then that will be just a further testament to his quality as a footballer, but he will receive the big glass football on Friday night in recognition of his exploits on the fields of East Kerry in October, November and, in all likelihood, December. History would suggest that the Footballer of the Year will come from the newly crowned champions - seven of the last nine Footballers of the Year were O’Donoghue Cup winners the same year - but he won’t necessarily be.
Indeed, the first East Kerry Footballer of the Year was Seamus Moynihan, with the Glenflesk man voted the best of the best even though his club, Glenflesk didn’t even reach the 2010 O’Donoghue Cup final.
Three years later John Buckley, Currow’s stylish forward was the Footballer of the Year even though his club didn’t reach the decider in 2013.
In the other seven years that the Footballer of the Year has been awarded, the accolade has gone to a player from that year’s O’Donoghue Cup champion, with Rathmore winning four of the awards and Dr Crokes the other three.
No matter what player receives the ultimate honour at Friday’s All Star banquet, we know this much: he will be joining a stellar cast of footballers that will be two-thirds on their way to completing one of the greatest teams to ever represent East Kerry, albeit a ‘fantasy team’ bound together only by their brilliant talent and the Footballer or the Year awards they possess.
By late Friday night 10 men will have the honour and distinction of being East Kerry SFC Footballers of the Year, and we reckon even as a 10-a-side team they would still give most teams in the county a run for their money.
The 2017 winner, Shane Ryan - who is the only person to hold the distinction of winning the Young Footballer (twice) and Senior Footballer of the Year award - was recognised for his brilliance in the Rathmore forward line that year, but given his ability as a goalkeeper, we’d be well within our rights to hand him the No.1 jersey on this East Kerry team.
Footballers of the Year in any selection process are, more often than not, stylish, scoring forwards, but it’s testament to the type of footballer that the East Kerry District consistently produces that there are as many defenders as forwards among the nine Footballers of the Year so far. How about Aidan O’Mahony at full back and his Rathmore team mate Paul Murphy at centre back.
At mid- field we’d go for the aforementioned Seamus Moynihan with Eoin Brosnan
beside him.
He was the best corner forward of his generation but we’ll put Colm Cooper on the forty for now, with John Buckley playing off him on one wing. Inside them we have Mark Reen from Rathmore and Kieran O’Leary of Dr Crokes.
Quite who becomes the 10th man on our dream team and where he might fit into the East Kerry FOTY 15 remains to be seen. All will be revealed on Friday.