CLUXTON ALL-STAR SNUB IS NOT AN INJUSTICE
THIS won’t end up in a march on O’Connell Street or a Damien Dempsey protest song. There is no injustice here to prick the consciences of Bono or Bob Geldof.
Stephen Cluxton put in a season of football in 2018 that was worthy of an All-Star, but then so, too, did Rory Beggan.
The differences between the two are in places stark, though, and worthy of consideration.
One is that Cluxton has captained Dublin to five All-Ireland titles in six seasons, and the last four in a row. And the second is that Cluxton will, in time, be regarded as the most important goalkeeper to ever play the game.
He must also be measured as one of the most influential footballers to ever play the game.
Neither of these two facts entitle him to an All-Star in 2018. An award in a given season should recognise the achievements of a player in that season, and not in previous ones (even if there have been selections over the years that have prompted the suspicion that a player is being honoured for a body of work rather than concentrated excellence over a six or seven-month span).
It is extraordinary that Cluxton has not been recognised in any of Dublin’s four-in-a-row seasons. But Beggan was a formidable alternative this season, as David Clarke was in 2016 and 2017.
In those years, as in 2015 when Kerry’s Brendan Kealy won, Cluxton must have been in the final selection discussions. That he has been edged out consistently is taken by Dublin supporters as irrefutable proof of media bias.
This is rather undone by the fact that seven of his team-mates will be honoured tonight. However, it is possible that Cluxton’s excellence has now become so routine as to be taken for granted.
His influence is so profound and it has reshaped football to such an extent — without Cluxton, a goalkeeper like Beggan would hardly have developed into the strategic and scoring weapon he has become — that it has become the standard.
It takes effort to recall a time when goalkeepers in football weren’t tactically vital. That is thanks to Cluxton, but it is newer talents like Beggan that attract attention now, even though Cluxton continues to maintain the levels of performance that redrafted the position, and with it the sport, in the first place.
The mistake he made against Galway was cited against him in places yesterday, but Beggan’s error as Monaghan’s attempt to draw level with Tyrone in the AllIreland semi-final sounded its death rattle, was more significant.
Yet honouring Beggan (right) as the best keeper in the country was not a miscalculation. He was exceptional, and is now as valuable to Monaghan as Cluxton is to Dublin. Given the greater spread of quality in the champions’ side, Beggan is probably more important to Monaghan.
The call was presumably a tight one; it certainly should have been. And Beggan squeaking the honour is no injustice.
What the All-Stars’ selection illustrated more generally is the ongoing diminution in importance of the provincial series.
It seems past the point of debating the merits of the provincial Championships now; the onset of the Super 8s was forecast to further stratify Gaelic games, and the evidence of this All-Star team suggests that process is now in train. The four provincial Champions won 10 All-Stars. Seven came from Dublin, who gambolled as usual through the flat, unchallenging lands of Leinster, a place as safe and sterile as an animal sanctuary. Where Dublin’s greatness was proved was in the AllIreland series, of course, but it is remarkable that Kerry, Galway and Donegal, the conquerors of Munster, Connacht and Ulster, won one
All-Star apiece. Football’s most important prize, the Sam Maguire, is decided in late summer and early autumn; and so now, too, are the All-Stars.
This will become more pronounced as the Super 8s become more established. This looks certain to happen, despite reasonable misgivings.
But the Super 8s are here to stay, and in concentrating attention on the leading teams, the provincial Championships get diluted and the end-of-season awards like the All-Stars get decided by what happens in August and September.
This is logical, given the biggest matches, the most pressurised ones, the ones involving the best teams, are played then.
But it leaves less and less room for romance. And it leads to situations where the supporters left outraged about the All-Stars team come from the county that has just celebrated four in a row, and who see seven of their heroes honoured — and yet they still feel hard done by.