It will be interesting to see how close this team is to the All Stars one.
The Sunday Game panel did the right thing, last night, and announced James McCarthy as their All-Ireland final man of the match. The Dublin midfield was imperious in his county’s 1-17 to 1-16 win over Mayo and few were arguing with the call.
As for the panel’s Team of the Year, there were a few gripes.
No members of the Tyrone team that swept all aside on their way to the semi finals – before Dublin got hold of them – meaning Tiernan McCann, Peter Harte, Niall Scully and Colm Cavanagh were all left out in the cold.
There was only one representative from the Kerry team. The Kingdom beat Dublin in the allianz final and played out two highly entertaining matches with Mayo before running out of steam.
Seven from Dublin, Seven from Mayo, One from Kerry https://t.co/HH78NDV4ch pic.twitter.com/uVeYq7CPsC
— RTÉ GAA (@RTEgaa) September 17, 2017
Dingle forward Paul Geaney was the odd-man out in a Team of the Year split evenly between champions Dublin and beaten finallists Mayo. On Geaney, RTE’s Joe Brolly said:
“Geaney is a complete package. A great fetcher, two-footed, ambitious, wants to school goals and he has a perfect understanding of how to play it.”
Geaney was included in a full forward line with Paul Mannion, who Brolly believes helped transform Dublin’s fortunes in the final, and Andy Moran after an ‘extraordinary season’.
The SportsJOE Team of the Year had seven Dubs – just like The Sunday Game’s team – but only four Mayo players. We also included Geaney while Tyrone’s Colm Cavanagh and Tiernan McCann made the cut, and Roscommon midfielder Enda Smith.
