Higgins stands alone on Team of the Quarter Century

Tempus fugit, they say. In 2034 the GAA will celebrate its 150th anniversary. The Great Famine was acknowledged to end in 1852, though part of me feels as a nation we never psychologically dealt with it, but some people decided our ancient ways needed resurrecting and preserving, our pride redeemed, and so 32 years after the Great Famine men like Michael Cusack and Maurice Davin decided to found our sporting marrow. It was called the Gaelic Athletic Association. They created a culture, a pure Irish identity that spread beyond the sporting fields into all facets of Irish life onto this day.

From humble beginnings teams spread through the nation, built upon the parish system and contained within the county borders. From the outset the game evolved, slowly at first but as the last century slipped away, the first 25 years of the new millennium has seen rapid change within our games – some for the betterment but some that turned the great game into a tactical bore fest, hence the newly awaited reset regarding the playing rules. The centrality of the club has also shifted into a county centric game. Yeats, in his poem ‘Easter 1916’, could have been talking about football in particular with the lines:

All changed, changed utterly 

A Terrible beauty is born

 Enough of the nostalgia and history. Martin Breheny of the Irish Independent recently picked the best footballers since 2000. His heavy lifting and research of the past quarter century resulted in an enjoyable ‘Team of the Quarter Century’ article. Don’t we all spend time picking our various greatest and best of teams? And, in fairness, I couldn’t quibble with Martin’s pick. On balance, it’s a balanced team. It’s more than that though. It shows quite simply how quickly 25 years pass. Armagh’s Francie Bellew and Laois player Joe Higgins along with Fermanagh’s Barry Owens are in contention for various slots and yet it appears so long ago since they plied their trades. Time truly flies.

Names I had forgotten, names that Martin didn’t include in his team, made the article interesting. In 1984, we had the GAA Team of the Century. That was followed by the Team of the Millennium. Both more or less stayed true to each other. Martin O’Connell came in for Stefan White and 1984 winner Jack O’Shea, who would add three more All-Ireland medals after that year, lost out to Laois man Tommy ‘Boy’ Murphy, who retired from inter-county football in 1953 and failed to make the 1984 team but ousted Jacko 16 years later. Not sure what Jacko did wrong, but hey.

Anyway, back to the present. Five nominations for each position and ten for the two midfield spots on the Quarter Century Best XV. One can now safely say that those two previous best XVs will come under severe challenge. The old stationary positioning, the play anywhere lad of today tied into modern recording and recollections, will surely oust the old timers. But then who knows, Tommy ‘Boy’ Murphy ousted Jack O’Shea in a later selection after all!

What Breheny’s article showed though is the adaptability of the modern player. As we go through the team, that will become evident. Positions are no longer fixed, the corner-back no longer takes the kickouts, the goalkeepers don’t wear berets or go for ice-cream during a lull in a game a la Patrick Kavanagh up in Iniskeen. They are now as central to the game as the ball is.

Dublin lead the way in nominations for the 15 spots with 18 players and six making the team. Kerry follow with 12 nominations and four making the team. Mayo have eight nominations with one on the team and Tyrone six nominations with two making the team. Donegal had four nominations with one making the selection and Armagh’s five nominations also resulted with one player on the team. Galway, with four nominations, and Cork and Monaghan with two apiece, each had no player among the fifteen, likewise 12 other counties who each had one nominee apiece, namely Wexford, Westmeath, Tipperary, Clare, Louth, Limerick, Kildare, Fermanagh, Meath, Laois, Derry and Sligo. The fall of Cork and Meath in particular is striking.

So, Mayo are third highest in terms of nominations, ranking above All-Ireland winners since 2000 Tyrone, Galway, Cork, Armagh and Donegal, with our eight nominations resulting in one selection on the team. I think that’s a fair return.

When you go through the numbers, we have one goalkeeper nominated, three defenders and strangely perhaps, four nominated for the forward line but no midfielder. So, let’s walk through Martin’s picks. Bear in mind that with 2034 a decade away, we may be looking at certain locked in picks with the current iteration.

Stephen Cluxton is the goalkeeper. No quibble. Redefined the role and won nine All-Irelands. Our boy, David Clarke is a deserved number two.

Right corner-back goes to Marc Ó Sé. It’s hard to argue with that other than to say Marc was probably among the last of the clearly defined number twos. We don’t feature there. Keogan of Meath made number five on the list of nominations but one could make a case for our own Chris Barrett, a lad who could cover a few defensive lines.

Michael Fitzsimmons is full-back and again, I’m not going to argue with a nine time All-Ireland winner. Again, Mayo have a no show here and nor can we complain.

Left full-back is our own Keith Higgins. Sean Flanagan holds that number on the previous two headline selections. Well done Keith.

Right half-back was plainly a tough one. Glad I didn’t have to make that pick. How do you separate James McCarthy, Tomas Ó Sé and Lee Keegan, not forgetting Seamus Moynihan? The dice rolled for Ó Sé. I would probably have loaded it for Keegan but two men with 14 All-Irelands between them carry solid weight.

Centre half-back was Kieran McGeeney. Can’t argue there either. Geezer’s solid, always was.

Jack McCaffrey’s speed, his eye and as tidy as a new pin, secured him left-half-back, but could you put in Colm Boyle, Galway’s Sean Óg de Paor, Kevin Cassidy of Donegal or Tyrone’s Phillip Jordan? Breheny nodded Jack through. I won’t block it.

Midfield has Darragh Ó Sé and Brian Fenton as its anchors. They are head and shoulders above the other eight nominees. We didn’t make a dent there. Tom Parsons or the underrated Seamus O’Shea maybe?

Right half-forward. Does such a position exist anymore? Well the number does and Ciarán Kilkenny fills it. Equally he could have filled numbers 11 and 12 too. Brian Dooher of Tyrone and Paul Flynn of Dublin miss out. We don’t feature. I’d have made a case for the vastly underrated Kevin McLoughlin as a nominee.

Michael Murphy is centre half-forward but in the modern game’s lottery numbers Murphy could have been 14, a false nine, you name it. Some spot had to be found for him and 11 it was. Interestingly, we had two nominees there, Aidan O’Shea and Ciaran McDonald. We did well with those two. I’d have stuck Kerry’s Colm Cooper in there as a nominee but Murphy’s the man.

Sean Kavanagh makes the left half-forward spot. Another play anywhere forward. Owen Mulligan didn’t make a nomination, Diarmuid Connolly did. Part of me went for Connolly. We don’t feature.

The right corner-forward spot goes to David Clifford. Open and closed all day long, until you see who number two was – The Gooch. How easy it was to put in Clifford, how hard to omit Gooch from the team. Cillian O’Connor made fifth nomination on that spot. He’s worthy of a higher placing but to be bracketed with Gooch and Clifford, that ain’t bad.

Full-forward was Peter The Great. You could swap Canavan with Murphy and a heartbeat wouldn’t miss a tick. Smooth like oil, gritty as sandpaper. Had we one Peter Canavan up front for Mayo of the 2012-2021 era, we’d have All-Irelands.

Bernard Brogan completes the team at left corner-forward. Our Andy Moran makes fourth pick. It’s possibly the one spot where the likes of Gooch, Connolly, Padraig Joyce or Michael Donnellan might have been slipped in, but Brogan delivered when it mattered, seven times, so he’s the man.

Strangely there are no hostages to fortune with that pick. A hair’s breath here or there. Clifford a certainty but perhaps a case for Gooch or Connolly of Dublin somewhere else, but where was that else? What about Lee Keegan? Granite and unflinching, the most un-Mayo player I ever saw. No fluctuations in form, never backing off or giving an inch but an eye for the big score. But then you look at who got the spot and you just shrug your shoulders and nod it through.

What the last quarter has shown clearly is that we are going through rapid change, flux. From tactical formations, fitness on par with professionals, split seasons and the serious ramping up of the county team with the format being adapted for more games but the feeling of jeopardy being sacrificed.

Factor in sponsorship, big business and recognition attached to being a serious GAA player, the game will go through further change before it settles back into something akin to when I first took an interest in it in the early sixties. Back then you could set your watch to how the game played out. No, they weren’t better times, merely the times that were. But they allow us a lens to measure the present from the past. Currently we are awaiting the implementation of the new rules. It is fair to say that the turn of the new millennium heralded serious changes in our national games.

It would be fair to say also that liberties were taken with the game in that era, it turned into something the original framers never intended. The unstated but understood rules of engagement of almost a hundred years plus, where one team attacked the other up and down the pitch until one finally overcame the other, were torn up. If you told me in 1965 or 1985 or indeed 1995 that the ball would be passed backwards like in rugby, that players would saunter back and forth hand-passing to each other, as player after player funnelled backwards, I would not have believed them. But it happened. Worse, it was presented as modernity when in essence it was anything but.

The Team of the Quarter Century is the bridge between the past and the future. With new rules and a recognition that the county scene isn’t the only sight on the landscape, the GAA will remain at the core of people’s lives. However, the follower need not be taken for granted. Paywalls are a challenge where the marriage between volunteerism that still underpins the essence of the GAA will test our great game. Our future should be about what Martin Breheny and his article did: create conversation about the playing game, teams, selections and heroes. Nothing else.

Here’s to the next quarter century safe in the knowledge I won’t be there at the end of it but hoping for its continued growth.