2010 ALL-STAR AWARDS FOOTBALL:WHILE TODAY'S announcement of the 2010 Vodafone All Star football team is possibly the most eagerly-anticipated in several years, the naming of the footballer of the year is effectively a foregone conclusion. If Dublin's Bernard Brogan isn't given the ultimate honour then perhaps those GAA journalists who make the selections should also be retrained, just like all match umpires soon will.
Assuming Brogan does win, he has Dublin manager Pat Gilroy to thank. Brogan admits, at the start of the year, Gilroy would “pick on him” and “torture him” as a way of improving his game, and especially his work-rate. Gilroy dropped him for the opening league games. Brogan needed to be fitter, happier, more productive, as Radiohead would say, and Gilroy’s taunting clearly had the desired effect.
Brogan’s championship scoring tally of 3-42 was bettered by only one man and one point (Kildare’s John Doyle, who hit 1-49), but Brogan proved himself the purest of strikers, and also the most accurate – his willingness and effectiveness at tracking back also adding a whole new dimension to his game.
Also, and again assuming he does win, Brogan will become the first Dublin player to win the All Star footballer of the year (first introduced in 1995) and the first player from a county that didn’t actually contest the All-Ireland final. All of which will reflect just how impressive a season he had.
The actual announcement of the footballer of the year won’t be made until Friday’s live awards banquet (RTÉ1, 7.0) – along with the 2010 All Star hurling team, and the hurler of the year – but the football selection will be named at a press conference in Dublin this afternoon, immediately after the final selection meeting.
Brogan is also a cert for one of the three full-forward positions, although plenty of other positions may surprise some, and disappoint others. With 12 counties represented among the 45 nominations, the 2010 All Star football team will likely have the greatest spread of recent years, if not ever. It will also be a markedly different team from 2009. In fact, only three of last year’s All-Stars team are nominated; Michael Shields and Graham Canty of Cork and Tomás Ó Sé of Kerry – with none of the 2009 All Star midfield, half-forward line or full-forward line selection among the nominees.
All-Ireland champions Cork, will 11 nominations, are sure to dominate, but there are strong contenders from Down, who have seven nominees, and also Kildare, Kerry, Dublin and Tyrone, and possibly Sligo, Limerick and Louth.
Dublin’s eventual progress to the All-Ireland semi-final, and their narrow defeat there to Cork, helped make the championship, and Brogan was constantly in the thick of it. This didn’t happen by accident as Gilroy decided early on he needed more from his star forward. “Pat did put me under pressure at the start of the year to up the work-rate, do more laps of the pitch, stuff like that,” says Brogan. “And with the free-taking as well I’d do something nearly every day. It helped my game as well.
“So I was flying fit. The way we played this year as well you needed a huge level of fitness to get through the games, and do the work that was demanded of you. You’d see that with the five subs called in every time. The half forwards would be out on their feet. So to play that kind of game you needed to be in serious shape.
“And he did torture me the first part of the year. But he’s a great man-manager like that. He’d pick on me the whole time, and eventually that got through to me. When I was working hard then he’d move on to someone else. He hugely improved my game, and my option taking. Hopefully next year he’ll have other lads to pick on, and get the best out of them.”
Dropping Brogan at the start of the league was also Gilroy’s way of saying every Dublin player would need to earn his place – and again it had the desired effect: “I think that was Pat trying to prove a point, that I did have to put in the work. Whereas before I’d maybe stay in the full-forward line and just try to get the scores. That’s what I thought my job was, but Pat wanted more. He wanted me out hassling for ball, and out breaking down the other team’s defence when they had the ball.
“He had no problem dropping lads if they weren’t doing that. So it was hard to get into the team. In fairness to him he plays teams on who is doing well in training. Alan (Brogan) didn’t start the first game, and Conal Keaney found it hard to find game time. It creates huge competition in the panel if players know they have a chance of starting if they’re playing well.”
With his club St Oliver Plunketts/Eoghan Ruadh making a surprise exit from the Dublin championship at the weekend, Brogan is now free to concentrate on the International Rules series – at which stage he’ll most likely be introduced as 2010 All Star and footballer of the year.
2010 Football Allstars: the contenders
ALL STAR FOOTBALL NOMINATIONS
Goalkeepers: Alan Quirke (Cork), Brendan McVeigh (Down), Pascal McConnell (Tyrone).
Full-back line:Michael Shields (Cork), Rory O'Carroll (Dublin), Peter Kelly (Kildare), Charlie Harrison (Sligo), Philip McMahon (Dublin), Justin McMahon (Tyrone), Dan Gordon (Down), John O'Brien (Louth), Marc Ó Sé (Kerry).
Half-back line:Paudie Kissane (Cork), Kevin McKernan (Down), Philip Jordan (Tyrone), Emmet Bolton (Kildare), Tomás Ó Sé (Kerry), Graham Canty (Cork), Noel O'Leary (Cork), Joe McMahon (Tyrone), Eamon Callaghan (Kildare).
Midfielders: Aidan Walsh (Cork), Paddy Keenan (Louth), Michael D Macauley (Dublin), John Galvin (Limerick), Kalum King (Down) Nicholas Murphy (Cork).
Half-forward line:Paddy Kelly (Cork), Daniel Hughes (Down), Graham Reilly (Meath), Martin Clarke (Down), Joe Sheridan (Meath), John Doyle (Kildare), Paul Kerrigan (Cork), Séamus Kenny (Meath), Cathal Cregg (Roscommon).
Full-forward line:Daniel Goulding (Cork), Bernard Brogan (Dublin), Donie Shine (Roscommon), Colm Cooper (Kerry), Donncha O'Connor (Cork), David Kelly (Sligo), Benny Coulter (Down), James Kavanagh (Kildare), Padraic Joyce (Galway).
COUNTIES:Cork – 11; Down – 7; Kildare – 5; Tyrone – 4; Dublin – 4; Kerry – 3; Meath – 3; Roscommon – 2; Sligo – 2; Louth – 2; Galway – 1; Limerick – 1.
