Now this is hard to credit.
The minor football team of the year was announced on Wednesday morning and one absentee is leaving football folk scratching their heads.
Paul O’Shea was arguably Kerry’s most consistent player from their first game against Tipperary in Munster to their last, that famous win against Galway in Croker.
In between that, the Kilcummin club man earned the man-of-the-match in that hard-fought All-Ireland semi-final win over Monaghan and turned in plenty of standout performances from centre forward throughout their campaign.
He hit the headlines for getting a little carried away in his post-match interview that day, but this man was doing the most of his talking on the field of play.
Agallamh le Laoch na hImeartha @Kerry_Official Paul O'Shea! Sár cluiche aige siúd!@GAA_BEO @EastKerryGAA @SouthKerryBoard @HSkerry pic.twitter.com/D5ddapSzjo
— Spórt TG4 (@SportTG4) August 12, 2018
A real team player, the 17-year-old’s ability to bring his Kingdom comrades into the game through pinpoint passes and direct running was a focal point of Peter Keane’s game plan. His game isn’t about shooting the lights out in terms of scores, and maybe that could point to why he was overlooked, but the value of his game was underestimated by nobody in Kerry.
During that final win over Galway, he remained calm and continued to spray inviting balls into Kerry’s inside line when the boys in green and gold needed a calm head to claw Galway back.
When their backs were against the wall, he dragged them back to where they should be and pointed the way for other lads to follow.
A captain leading by example, prior to the naming of this team, Kerry’s number 11 would have been considered as one of the leading lights of this whole minor campaign.
How the expert panel, which included Sean Cavanagh and Daniel Goulding, left Kerry’s orchestrator in chief out of their 15 is beyond belief.
It was Kerry who lead the charge on the rest of the team, with Owen Fitzgerald, Darragh Rahily, Colm Moriarty and Paul Walsh all honoured, but the mind boggles as to how their number 11 was left out.
Seven other counties completed the selection, with three Galway men and two Meath men also making the cut.
Here’s the full XV.
