All Stars has always been a curates egg

KILLINAN END Column

The All-Star achievement of Cork’s Downey brothers was acknowledged on the GAA’s official website which reminded us that they were the 24th set of brothers to win All-Star awards in the same year.

The first brothers to do so was half a century ago, when Martin & John Quigley of Wexford, won awards at centre-forward and right-corner-forward respectively. What makes the Quigley’s achievement truly remarkable is the knowledge that with the lapse of half a century, it is utterly unrepeatable in the manner of their particular achievement.

The recently announced All-Stars were a very different proposition indeed. The primary qualification necessary for an All-Star award at the present time appears to be lining out in the All-Ireland Final. We can safely assume that had Limerick beaten Cork in the All-Ireland semi-final the Downey’s would not be joining elite company. Indeed, you often wonder how many All-Star awards rest on the puck of a ball. Had Kilkenny somehow conjured one of their traditional late scores to pilfer an unlikely win against Clare it is fair to assume that at least six awards and the Hurler of the Year as well would rest elsewhere. In that sense individual performance is subservient to the broader progress of the team when it comes to nudging players towards All-Star awards.

This does not appear to have been the case fifty years ago. The Quigleys of Rathnure won their awards despite Wexford being defeated in the Leinster Final. Of course, in those days the Leinster Final was a match of greater significance – firstly it was a knockout game, and secondly it was a more or less an effective All-Ireland semi-final. This was about to change as the seeds of a Galway resurgence were really beginning to bear fruit and for all their inconsistencies since this has been perhaps the most enduring injection of new power into the game.

The Leinster Final of 1974 was no ordinary game either. Pádraig Puirséal, a Mooncoin man and reporter for the Irish Press, was scrambling for superlatives in his account of proceedings. “Incredible? Fantastic? Out-of-this-world? There is just no superlative that can adequately sum up this Leinster senior hurling final yesterday” was his opening line in the match report. Behind the excitement and quality, the story is one of Wexford defiance in adversity. Seven points down at half-time and with Phil Wilson already sent to the line the Model County came back to lead in the dying moments before the inevitable Eddie Keher free denied them even a draw. This was the context for the Quigleys’ All-Star awards.

It was, as Puirséal noted, Kilkenny’s first achievement of four-in-a row in the province breaking an “86 year old hoodoo” – which of course harked back to the very first organised inter-county championship. The Black and Amber would go on to make it five and take the next two All-Ireland titles to add to their 1972 win. This period of extraordinary achievement yielded seven All-Star awards in 1974 and another six in 1975.

Their five-in-a-row Kilkenny counterparts in Leinster this year received no All-Star award. It is an eloquent illustration of the devalued nature of the championship in the eastern province. We are not inclined to weep for Kilkenny as they have rarely had a raw deal when it comes to marginal calls on All-Stars, but it does make you wonder about the value of much of what goes on in the early part of the championship. It is curious considering all the hurling that is played in the provinces these days that they appear to count for naught in the All-Star consideration.

Back in 1974 Cork were awarded two All-Stars (Con Roche & John Horgan) despite exiting the championship in the first round in a seismic shock against Waterford in Walsh Park. Cork had laid waste to All-Ireland champions, Limerick, in the League Final winning by eighteen points. It was a day when Cork must have looked like prospective All-Ireland winners and maybe that memory still loomed large for the All-Star selectors.

Yet, a year later after Cork had beaten Limerick by eleven points in the Munster Final, they managed to have just Gerald McCarthy on the All-Star team, a reaction to their surprise loss to Galway in the All-Ireland semi-final. Meanwhile Limerick had three players on the same team leaving you with the sense that the All-Star team was a greater attempt in those early years to name the best team in the country. Tadhg O’Connor’s inclusion despite Tipp failing to progress in Munster is another example of individual quality chosen over team profile.

It is worth mentioning that on the same day Cork had what would be called these days “a statement win” over Limerick in the League Final, a low-profile Division 2 League Football Final saw Kildare beat Dublin by seven points. Just four months later, a dozen of those Dubs won the county’s All-Ireland Senior title in over a decade. Nothing in that regard has even been quite the same since either.