You think it’s a tense time for the players? Think of the poor journalists.
Going to games, being confronted with fans, dealing with the pressure of having to shoehorn just 15 people into one end-of-year All-Star team. And, let’s face it, whatever they come up with, it’s going to be lambasted.
Paddy Bradley only has one All-Star. Diarmuid Connolly only has one All-Star. Where the hell is he? How the f**k did that man get in ahead of him? It’s a thankless task but an important one.
Ciaran Murphy of Second Captains remembers it all too well. He remembers being on the selection committee and the scrutiny that it brought with it – not on the players, on him. Every conversation he had about football ended with his mates labelling him a fraud and question how on earth he is tasked with the job of picking the All-Star team.
And it got to him. Every game ‘Murph’ was at, he was thinking All-Stars.
“I remember sitting in Croke Park one day and the Laois goalkeeper was performing heroics,” he explained to SportsJOE.
“I made a very definitive mental note that not only was this guy putting his name forward for an All-Star, but when I suggest his name at the All-Stars meeting, people will nod in appreciation that I’m screwed on here, I’m not just selecting the last three goalkeepers left in the championship.
“There is a bit of pressure on. You do have it very much to the front of your mind whilst your reporting on things.”
But whilst you carry that burden with you everywhere you go, you get to the meeting at the end of the season and realise that you probably don’t have that much influence over this selection process.
“There are a group of journalists who have been there for years and years and years and those core guys make all the decisions,” Ciaran said.
“They make the decisions and you are there to add your expertise at vital moments – the Laois goalkeeper, for instance, to give it a hipster vibe.
“I remember, with pride, getting one man on the team in 2012, me and a cabal of others. There are massive rows but not necessarily about certain players.”
A lot of those debates instead focus around why would this player be in that position and can we not just pick the best number 13 and pick the best number 11 and so on. It doesn’t matter if the second best number 13 was the second best player in the country, it would be a lot simpler for some if they stuck to those positions it seems.
“Guys will come out and say ‘well, he was marking this guy who is already on the All-Star team’. So if Andy Moran was on Marc Ó Sé for instance and we’ve given Marc Ó Sé an All-Star but Andy Moran kicked three points off him when they were playing, that’s taken into account in a very real sense.
“There’s plenty of detail floating around but there is also a major element of the conversations you have with your dad about football now. ‘Sure it’s all a mess anyway and I much preferred it when I could choose between James McCartan and Bernie Flynn for the number 13 jersey. If Flynn scored one more point, then he gets the All-Star and McCartan doesn’t’.
“In 2012, Mark McHugh had revolutionised football but it was like where do you play him on the team? He wore number 12, he was a sweeper, he played everywhere and in the end he won the All-Star at number 12.
“But I do remember there being this kind of fevered debate, like ‘why are we picking all these Donegal backs? They all have so much help’. That generation gap does exist – for the years I was involved anyway.
“You’re kind of sitting down thinking, ‘right, should we just name the best 15 players and throw them up in a heap?’ There’s probably a lot to be said for doing that to be honest and I think that’s how it works out.”
Grand. But if the football All-Stars come out this week and Diarmuid Connolly is overlooked again, these boys will have me to answer to for one.
The Second Captains Sports Annual Vol. 2 is now available to pre-order here.
Colm O’Rourke and Pauric Mahony join Colm Parkinson on a packed GAA Hour that includes Dick Clerkin appreciation and Sean Cavanagh envy. Subscribe here on iTunes.
