The Sunday Game 'Football' Team of the Year (So Far))

grenache

The team as announced on last Sunday evening's programme:

1. P. McConnell (Tyrone)
2. C. Harrison (Sligo)
3. Justin McMahon (Tyrone)
4. Joe McMahon (Tyrone)
5. T O Sé (Kerry)
6. M Shields (Cork)
7. P. Jordan (Tyrone)
8. J. Galvin (Limerick)
9. P Keenan (Louth)
10. P. Galvin (Kerry)
11. P Joyce (Galway)
12. J Sheridan (Meath)
13. C Cooper (Kerry)
14. B Brogan (Dublin)
15. D Kelly (Sligo)

Declan O'Sullivan (Kerry) would be marginally ahead of Pauraic Joyce in my team. Also i would swap Mike McCarthy (Kerry) for Michael Shields and Alan Costello (Sligo) for Paul Galvin and then you'd have the real team of the year so far. Paudie Kissane (Cork) and Cian Ward (Meath) could also consider themselves unlucky to not have earned a place on the team.

MfMan

grenache wrote: »

The team as announced on last Sunday evening's programme:

1. P. McConnell (Tyrone)
2. C. Harrison (Sligo)
3. Justin McMahon (Tyrone)
4. Joe McMahon (Tyrone)
5. T O Sé (Kerry)
6. M Shields (Cork)
7. P. Jordan (Tyrone)
8. J. Galvin (Limerick)
9. P Keenan (Louth)
10. P. Galvin (Kerry)
11. P Joyce (Galway)
12. J Sheridan (Meath)
13. C Cooper (Kerry)
14. B Brogan (Dublin)
15. D Kelly (Sligo)

Declan O'Sullivan (Kerry) would be marginally ahead of Pauraic Joyce in my team. Also i would swap Mike McCarthy (Kerry) for Michael Shields and Alan Costello (Sligo) for Paul Galvin and then you'd have the real team of the year so far. Paudie Kissane (Cork) and Cian Ward (Meath) could also consider themselves unlucky to not have earned a place on the team.

No, but if you drop Brogan for O'Sullivan and move in Joyce, it would be better. Joyce night and day a better player than Brogan.

grenache

MfMan wrote: »

No, but if you drop Brogan for O'Sullivan and move in Joyce, it would be better. Joyce night and day a better player than Brogan.

Yes i agree with you that he is a better player, but Brogan has carried Dublin through this years championship, without him they'd be fcuked. Joyce hasn't had the same impact for Galway, although he was super against Sligo in the replay.

Royal Seahawk

Graham Reilly from Meath should be on it, my player of the year so far.

Hulk Hands

grenache wrote: »

Yes i agree with you that he is a better player, but Brogan has carried Dublin through this years championship, without him they'd be fcuked. Joyce hasn't had the same impact for Galway, although he was super against Sligo in the replay.

Did you watch any of the Galway games? They could have been beaten by New York if it hadn't been for his heroics. The drawn game against Sligo was his best game, where he was sensational. He was also phenomenal against Wexford. He completelty carried a totally underperforming Galway side in the 4 games, to a much larger extent than Brogan has carried Dublin. The game you mention was probably the one he was least effective in

mac85

Hulk Hands wrote: »

Did you watch any of the Galway games? They could have been beaten by New York if it hadn't been for his heroics. The drawn game against Sligo was his best game, where he was sensational. He was also phenomenal against Wexford. He completelty carried a totally underperforming Galway side in the 4 games, to a much larger extent than Brogan has carried Dublin. The game you mention was probably the one he was least effective in

Spot on there. Only for Joyce it would have been a lot worse for Galway. He was immense in the 4 games.

I'd have put Costello in at 10 and Reilly in at 12.

nice_guy80

Not a Roscommon man on it.
Thats gas

keane2097

These sorts of lists are a load of **** tbh.

What criteria are we judging them on? It's obviously not "best player in the position", because Padraig Joyce wouldn't be CF, Declan O'Sullivan would. Some people are suggesting "biggest impact for their team", others "players teams would have been most fcuked without" etc.

Someone complaining about the lack of Roscommon players seems to suggest the criterion is "most above expectation performance" etc.

It's a load of bollocks tbh.

thebuilderbob

D Shine should be there ahead of Kelly.. Shine second top scorer in champonship gave an masterclass in Connacht final..Kelly on the other hand touched the ball about 5 times with little results...

God to see Galvin and Keenan recognized at midfield.. strange to see galvin on the team, hasn't played much this year but i still rate him as one of the best in the business. Would also agree with McCarty ahead of Shields

grenache

Hulk Hands wrote: »

Did you watch any of the Galway games? They could have been beaten by New York if it hadn't been for his heroics. The drawn game against Sligo was his best game, where he was sensational. He was also phenomenal against Wexford. He completelty carried a totally underperforming Galway side in the 4 games, to a much larger extent than Brogan has carried Dublin. The game you mention was probably the one he was least effective in

With all due respect to Joyce, the quality of the teams he has faced - New York, Sligo, Wexford - are not at the same standard that Declan O'Sullivan played against in Munster. He single-handedly dragged Kerry back into the first Cork game and the Munster final against Limerick. He is more important to Kerry than Gooch in my opinion.

powerfade

Johnny Davey at wing-back from Sligo, he's had an unbelievable coupke of months in the Championship so far, would have him ahead of Jordan at the moment for team of the Championship so far.

telecaster

thebuilderbob wrote: »

D Shine should be there ahead of Kelly.. Shine second top scorer in champonship gave an masterclass in Connacht final..Kelly on the other hand touched the ball about 5 times with little results...

Despite racking up a matchwinning score against Sligo, Shine missed plenty of chances too. I'm far from Kelly's biggest fan, but he was scoring goals against Mayo and Galway, while Shine was doing his scoring largely from frees against the likes of London and Leitrim.

Graham Reilly very hard done by not to be on the team. Thought Dooher gave some fine performances too.

hardybuck

I think those hyping up Roscommon and Shine need to relax. This is a really poor year for the standard in Connaught, and the likes of Shine will need to repeat his form against better opposition if they are to be considered for All Stars.

g5fd6ow0hseima

hardybuck wrote: »

I think those hyping up Roscommon and Shine need to relax. This is a really poor year for the standard in Connaught, and the likes of Shine will need to repeat his form against better opposition if they are to be considered for All Stars.

Agreed, but regardless of the standard in Connacht this year, the Connacht Final was probably the best provincial final of the year. I feel it makes up for the poorer games.

mrgaa1

Brendan Donaghy (Armagh) best full-back in the country by a mile.
In any case a poor team compared to years gone by.

rpurfield

my two big problems with it are the fact paul galvin is on it when lads have played more football than him this year and if i was going to have one meath player on it graham reilly stephen bray and cian ward all have better calls for it than joe sheridan.joe was great in the replay against laois and that has been about it from him so far this year.thought he was alright against offaly terrible in the first laois game ok against the dubs and complete ****e in the leinster final.graham reilly has been brilliant in every game.

theoneeyedman

agree with the sentiment that these lista are a bit of an arse.....are very subjecive at best and lads in this one are there on reputation as much as form......galvin and dooher have played fcuk all this tear regardless of how good players they are. RE: shine/kelly etc..... the Roscommon player most deserving of a place on this team is Geoff Claffey in goals..... he has seriously inproved over tha last few years and imo is one of the most consistent in his position in the country....safe under high balls.....good in a 1v1(save v kelly last week) and an excellent kick out. National media havent seen a lot of him in nether regions of div 3 i'd say but watching him in national league behind a poor defence shows he is an excellent player. Shine is a great talent but is not complete article yet and all this hype/flavour of the week stuff in national media is not good for a young lad IMO .... let him develop at his own pace i say

rossie1977

hardybuck wrote: »

I think those hyping up Roscommon and Shine need to relax. This is a really poor year for the standard in Connaught, and the likes of Shine will need to repeat his form against better opposition if they are to be considered for All Stars.

no connaught man should be on the team so based on your assessement, joyce is on the team solely based on his performances against sligo, yet donal shannon had a better game against sligo than joyce had in either of the two games he played against sligo

davedaly7532

rossie1977 wrote: »

no connaught man should be on the team so based on your assessement, joyce is on the team solely based on his performances against sligo, yet donal shannon had a better game against sligo than joyce had in either of the two games he played against sligo

absolute load of tripe. Joyce was class in both Sligo games and was unbelievable again against Wexford. absolute class act who should be in contention for an all-star at the end of the year only for going out so early.

rossie1977

joyce will get no all-star, the best player on the field in the galway-wexford game was ling

hardybuck

rossie1977 wrote: »

no connaught man should be on the team so based on your assessement, joyce is on the team solely based on his performances against sligo, yet donal shannon had a better game against sligo than joyce had in either of the two games he played against sligo

In fairness nobody saw Roscommon v Leitrim as it was so low profile. The players being touted as potential All Stars will need at least one more big game before they can be considered. If they are deserving this should be no problem.

Terrible year for Connaught thus far. The three teams to face teams from outside the province are Mayo-beaten by a Div 4 team who are no longer in the Championship, Galway-beaten by a Div 3 team who are no longer in he Championship, and Leitrim who didn't win a game this year. Consequently we have to view performances in the province so far with caution.

Joyce had three big games in which he kept his team in the competition. However, as his county is gone so early he is likely to miss out for an All Star.

busbybhoy

hardybuck wrote: »

I think those hyping up Roscommon and Shine need to relax. This is a really poor year for the standard in Connaught, and the likes of Shine will need to repeat his form against better opposition if they are to be considered for All Stars.

Spot on!

busbybhoy

Room for another forward now as David Kelly can be removed...2 games without a score! A great forward doesnt get found out after a couple of games! The best forwards CANT be man marked!

wow sierra

The team is supposed to be the best SO FAR. Not who we think will win All Stars, or who plays for a team which will still be there in September. SO FAR Shine has scored 1.29 in THREE games. And yes we know the opposition was poor but he still scored some fabulous points from distance which is a great skill.
If Pat Spillane says we "struggled" to beat London and Leitrim one more time I will scream. 14-6 and 1.13-11 is hardly "struggling". In 2009 our championsip didnt end with the Mayo hammering - after that we drew with Wexford and then beat them and were beaten by Meath in Navan. Incidently Shine scored 6 points against Meath that day (but who's counting;)). Roscommon are playing this year without Senan Kilbride, their player of the year and best forward from last year. Hopefully he might be able to make an appearance the next day.
None of this matters anyway - yes we are probably the weakest team left in the Championship and the best advantage we have, apart from having the best manager, is the fact that we are written off by everyone. Looking forward to Croker.

Long Term Louth

Royal Seahawk wrote: »

Graham Reilly from Meath should be on it, my player of the year so far.

Anyone from any other county cross your mind?

keane2097

Is there any reason why the word "Football" is in inverted commas in the thread title

Dools2007

busbybhoy wrote: »

Room for another forward now as David Kelly can be removed...2 games without a score! A great forward doesnt get found out after a couple of games! The best forwards CANT be man marked!

David Kelly scored two points against Down, one of them being one of the better scores you will see this year. He got the ball on the right wing, two men came over to cover them, he ducked in between the two of them and scored off his left.

It is very easy to criticise David Kelly but anyone who watched the Sligo vs Roscommon / Down games will see that he was being starved of possession. Even the Gooch cannot do feck all if he doesn't have possession coming through to him.

Sligo's problems in the last two games lay with our midfield not winning enough ball and our half backs / forwards not winning enough of the breaks. We got very little quality ball into our forwards which is the real reason that we haven't been scoring. Any game this year where we had parity at midfield, we did reasonably well.

Royal Seahawk

Long Term Louth wrote: »

Anyone from any other county cross your mind?

Bernard Brogan and maybe Donie Shine..

grenache

keane2097 wrote: »

Is there any reason why the word "Football" is in inverted commas in the thread title

to differentiate it from the hurling team of the year so far thread

keane2097

grenache wrote: »

to differentiate it from the hurling team of the year so far thread

Why is it in inverted commas is the question.

rambo87

Royal Seahawk wrote: »

Graham Reilly from Meath should be on it, my player of the year so far.

here here. The meath Forwards have been class this year, scoring 20 points per game.. except against Louth they were quiet.

DH2K9

Where is Michael Dara McAuley. Been one of Gilroy's excellent choices. Can play midfield or centre half forward and never stops running. Probably best tackler in this years championship. I remember against Armagh he dispossess the 3 times in about ten minutes. Brilliant.

HallisseyEoin

Dermot Early best midfielder in the country.

raven136

Earley and O Callaghan deserve a mention at least in this discussion.Hard to put away my Kildare glasses but Flynn and Earley must be one of the most impressive partnerships in midfield.

SilasMarner

busbybhoy wrote: »

Room for another forward now as David Kelly can be removed...2 games without a score! A great forward doesnt get found out after a couple of games! The best forwards CANT be man marked!

Ridiculous shout.
The lad from Roscommon did well on him even though he had the shirt pulled off him for the whole game but that aside it all boils down to the fact that absolutely no ball got even remotely close to the forwards in the last two games.
It could be argued that Kelly was Sligos best midfielder in the second half against Down, that was how deep he had to drop to get ball!!!!

grenache

keane2097 wrote: »

Why is it in inverted commas is the question.

Because the two threads have near identical titles. Just to make it stand out further.

Super5onic

SilasMarner wrote: »

Ridiculous shout.
The lad from Roscommon did well on him even though he had the shirt pulled off him for the whole game but that aside it all boils down to the fact that absolutely no ball got even remotely close to the forwards in the last two games.
It could be argued that Kelly was Sligos best midfielder in the second half against Down, that was how deep he had to drop to get ball!!!!

The lad from Ross didnt exceptionally well on him which says it all really.....With the utmost of respect to the "lad" i never heard of him before. So is he a top class defender or is Kelly just not in the top 6 forwards in the country. He wouldnt come close to my top team this year...between Dublin, Meath, Kerry, Cork, Tyrone lone i can name players who performed in EVERY game they played.

Sligo are the most overhyped team this year IMO! Where are they now and how many trophies did they win and o ya how much did they eventually lose by their first game out of Connaught? (By a team that also played 6 days earlier)