BACKS AGAINST THE WALL Reaction to ’keeper Beggan’s man-of-the-match award shows how much forwards are favoured

Ever wondered what it’s like being accused of heresy, extreme incompetence and/ or substandard intelligence by a baying social media mob? Try giving a man-of-the-match award to someone other than a forward.

The Salem Witch trials had nothing on last Sunday. Pitchforks, burning torches, the whole shebang.

Paddy Lynch is a great bit of stuff. Big, accurate. Kicks frees from both sides. Strikes the ball sweetly and true. You’d build an attack around him.

But there’s no retrospective angst, no buyer’s remorse, from this pundit.

Lynch has the potential to become one of the best forwards in the game. He’s clutch. On Sunday, in the inferno of Ulster Championship football, he made his kicks – all of them – under pressure. Angles. Distance. Whatever you’re having yourself.

Now, he needs a couple of others around him to help out. To take the heat off and to play off. Particularly now that he’s sprung to national attention. But we’re so biased towards forwards in how we analyse and interpret Gaelic football it’s untrue.

And by ‘we’, I mean you. Because I’ve never been inclined to view it that way. We, the noble defenders of Gaelic football, are overlooked. We are the poor, the downtrodden, the put-upon of our sport.

A simple rule: the lower the number on your back – with the notable exception of number one, who, by their nature, are extroverts, show-offs and attention-seekers – the less chance you have of receiving flowers.

Ratings

If you’re a full-back or a corner-back and you do everything right in a game, you might, just might, get a mention in the small print and maybe a seven out of ten in the ratings.

If you’re inside forward and you tap over a few frees or palm in a goal after loitering at the back post while the rest of your teammates have broken their collective arses opening up the opposition, you get the picture and the headline.

Don’t believe me? Here’s an exercise in self-awareness.

Think of the last game you were at or even watched on TV. Go back through it in your head. Now, who played well? How many of the players who spring to mind are forwards? How many of them are defenders?

Of the ones that are recognised backs, are you re calling their defensive actions, or is it because they scored? Be honest now.

Why is it that the scant few defenders to have won the Football er of the Year award in the past 20 years are attack-minded? Lee Keegan, Jack McCaffrey – even Karl Lacey. Why do we disregard defending in this way when it is of fundamental and at least equal importance?

I gave Rory Beggan the man-of-thematch on the BBC last weekend. I did that despite the narrative around him, not because of it.

Lynch was excellent. But he got 1-1 from play. The goal was scored into an empty net after I’d made the decision. He dropped one shot short and was blocked down twice. He made a couple of poor decisions to shoot.

Yes, his frees were good and crucial, but – not to sound like Roy Keane here - that’s his job.

I was hesitant to give it to Beggan because of the noise around him, but his influence on a game is just incredible. Frees, kick-outs. Pressing up. Playing as Monaghan’s ‘out’ ball. Their quarterback.

His save from Lynch after a brilliant back-door cut at close range from a shot that skimmed the grass was exceptional for a big man. One of the best I’ve seen in years.

So yes, I’m biased. Not so much in favour of goalkeepers, but in expecting a little bit more from forwards before we shower them with adulation. Scoring is hard, but so is defending.

Not to go on about it now, but the danger in not recognising good defending is that it becomes less appealing for young footballers. When you don’t produce guys with high defensive skills, you must find another way to stop conceding scores.

So you protect your backs by com pressing the space around them and always having cover back there. That’s partly why duels go out of the game. It’s only right to note the importance, the quality of a Mick Fitzsimons or a Jason Foley or a Mick O’Grady. If they’re getting recognition in the media, if they’re winning accolades, that part of the game attains greater value in the public consciousness.

None of which should take away from Lynch because he and Darragh Canavan are the best young forwards in the game now.

If you were Stephen O’Neill working with the Cavan forwards, you’d be squeezing Lynch now because there is clearly more in him. He’ll be watched like a hawk, so Cavan’s next task is to figure out a way to use the space that naturally occurs elsewhere, given so much focus will be on Lynch.

The one component missing from the BBC studio last week was Oisín McConville, who, to be fair, had a good excuse in that he was busy masterminding the shock of the weekend.

What a win for Wicklow. We tend to speak about counties of their level and how the league is almost more important than the championship, given the prospects of success therein.

Division 4 to Division 3 is a big step up. I’m sure the survival stats would reflect that. But staying in that third rung would theoretically bring a county that spend so much time in Division 4 on a long way.

So relegation was a big disappointment for Wicklow. There wasn’t much sign of life from them and not having Mark Jackson was clearly a big disadvantage. To pull off a win over Westmeath, plenty of people’s choice as Leinster’s second-best team, is enormous.

It validates all the work that Oisín has been doing there. I know he’s passionate about coaching and management. He’s not there just for the mileage or the profile. It grants Wicklow more or less a free crack at Kildare, who, let’s be honest, probably can’t believe their luck.

The flip side is Westmeath going down like that is not great for the Leinster Championship. It probably wasn’t going to make much difference to the overall outcome anyway, but it seems more inevitable than ever.

Meath go to Croke Park tomorrow to play Dublin after leaking 3-12 to Longford. Even with the safety net of knowing they have a place in the All-Ireland series, it’s hard to see the afternoon going any other way than the obvious.

I could be proved wrong, but it’s only the second weekend of the championship and it feels like we’ve used up our entire April quota of giant-killings.

‘The danger in not recognising good defending is that it becomes less appealing for young footballers’