What must a player do to receive an All-Star nomination?

What must a player do to receive an All-Star nomination? I must admit that I for one am a little confused. I have an idea what way the Hurling and Football one are selected. I am glad that Waterford for the second year in a row had four players nominated for Camogie All-Star’s recently and I have a feeling that when the best fifteen players are announced in a few weeks time that Waterford will have more than one All-Star in the county which it won last year when Beth Carton was chosen in the countries best fifteen players. In fact I believe that Waterford will receive this year more than the one which it won last year.

But when it comes to Ladies Football this year, I for one am more than a little bit disappointed if I was to keep my choice of language in order, as when this year’s nominations were announced in the last few days there was no Waterford player listed in the 45 nominations for 15 awards.

I have no arguments in seeing All-Ireland Champions Dublin receive the most nominations. They had 13 nominations from the 45. In addition to being All-Ireland Champions they are also Leinster Champions and they reached the semi finals of Division One of the National League where they lost out to eventual winners Cork by a single point at Nowlan Park.

All-Ireland Runners-Up Galway has the joint second highest number of dominations with nine. Again you can’t have much of a problem with the ladies from west of the Shannon receive such a number of nominations. They beat Mayo after a replayed Connacht Final in Limerick while they were also runners up to Cork in the First Division of the National League where two points separated the sides at the end of the hour at Parnell Park in Dublin.

Mayo also received nine nominations, the same as Galway which is something that could be questioned. Mayo finished fifth in Division One of the National League, missing out a place in the semi finals as a result, they as already pointed out lost to Galway after a replay in the Connacht Final, the Connacht Championship like the Leinster one being a two team competition, meaning both sides automatically contested the final, but they did win their group in the Round Robin section of the All-Ireland qualifiers and went on to play Galway in the All-Ireland semi finals where they lost out by a point in a game that some would argue had a controversial finish.

Cork had seven nominations. A fair reflection on the year they had if we are to be honest. Maybe they might even feel disappointed not to have got one or two more nominations. After all they won the Division One League Final, they beat Waterford in the Munster Final at Fraher Field and they lost out to Dublin in the All-Ireland Semi Finals at Croke Park.

Two nominations for Tipperary might seem right. They finished second from bottom of Division One in the National League in their first year in a number of year’s playing at this grade. Any team playing in the top tier of any league will only be looking to retain their place for a second year and therefore the competition was a success for them in that manner, and later in the year went on to win the All-Ireland Intermediate Championship, beating Meath at Croke Park.

So far 42 of the 45 nominations are accounted for and of the three not accounted for so far there was one each for Armagh, Donegal and Meath.

Meath’s nomination went to goalkeeper Monica McGuirk. I will hold my hands up and readily admit I took no interest in Division three of the National League in 2019, and neither did I take much of an Interest how the Intermediate Championship was panning out, with the exception on how Tipperary were doing, a competition I expected them to be too strong for. Therefore I don’t know how good Monica McGuirk was between the posts for Meath. The Royal County did win the Division Three League Final and they finished second to Tipperary in the Intermediate Championship so I am sure they had some good performers across both competitions, but the Duleek/Bellowstown Club player must have had a really excellent season between the posts for Meath because Rosie Landers who took ownership of the Number 1 Shirt with Waterford in her first year playing with the seniors had a really fantastic season, and I for one would have been expecting her to be there or there about when it came to getting named in the overall best team of the year after helping her side to win the Division 2 League Final against Kerry, helping Waterford reach a Munster Final against Cork, knocking what many expected to be a good Kerry side out along the way and also helping her side reach an All-Ireland quarter final where they lost out to a very good Galway side.

In fact the Ballyduff Upper player was one of two or three Waterford players to get a nomination this year with maybe one or two others thrown in contention as well. Michelle Ryan had another excellent year playing in the white and blue of Waterford this year and would have been a wordy nomination.

The two Waterford players named above are but two players which impressed again this year. Caoimhe McGrath, the Murray Sisters, Karen McGrath, Róisín Tobin, Kelly Anne Hogan, Aileen Wall, Eimear Fennell and Maria Delahunty also impressed in the league and championship this year and if nominated for an All-Star this year nobody would have argued against their inclusion, but nobody would suggest that Waterford should have all players mentioned above nominated for All-Stars.

Such awards are mostly dominated by the two sides which reach the All-Ireland final as well as the sides that contest the Division One League Final if they were not to reach the All-Ireland Final. The sides that contest the semi finals would have their quota of nominations, while you would expect the Intermediate champions to get recognition as well as happened this year with Tipperary.

Scanning through the All-Star Nominations for this year when it comes to Ladies Football, it quickly becomes obvious that six of the eight teams which contested the All-Ireland Quarter Finals are represented in the 45 strong nominations. Kerry like Waterford are the two to miss out. Both sides reached the Division Two League Final. Both sides no doubt will feel that they could and should have representation amongst the best 45 players in the country, Waterford certainly should having won the League Final between the two sides.

The sides that reached the All-Ireland semi finals are the sides that received the biggest representation of the 45 with 38. The two semi finals as well as the final this year were played at Croke Park and attracted an attendance of 67,000 (yes, I know there would be a double up with some people attending both days), and no doubt draw the biggest representation of those tasked with picking the best players to choose 45 players from across the country which will be whittled down to 15.

I would hope that because just because they did not qualify for a Division One National League Semi Final or an All-Ireland Senior Semi Final that it did not rule them out of contention, maybe because they might not have got the television exposure that other players got. This year a number of our ladies games (both Ladies Football and Camogie) were streamed live on social media. Hopefully the same will happen again going forward. It would even be fantastic to see an even greater amount of games streamed, be they be live or later in the evening recorded. I am sure it could happen. If this was to happen, hopefully then the players that play who do not make the big semi finals will then be amongst those that get All-Star Nominations.

2019 TG4 All Star nominations:

Goalkeepers:

Ciara Trant (Dublin)*, Lisa Murphy (Galway), Monica McGuirk (Meath)

Right corner back:

Sinéad Burke (Galway)*, Eimear Meaney (Cork), Éabha Rutledge (Dublin)

Full back:

Hannah Looney (Cork), Niamh Collins (Dublin), Danielle Caldwell (Mayo)

Left corner back:

Melissa Duggan (Cork), Martha Byrne (Dublin), Éilis Ronayne (Mayo)

Right half back:

Nicola Ward (Galway), Aoife Kane (Dublin), Shauna Kelly (Cork)

Centre back:

Ashling Hutchings (Cork), Sinéad Goldrick (Dublin)*, Ciara McManamon (Mayo)

Left half back:

Olwen Carey (Dublin), Ciara Whyte (Mayo), Niamh McGirr (Tyrone)

Midfield:

Lauren Magee (Dublin)*, Louise Ward (Galway), Caroline O’Hanlon (Armagh), Aisling McCarthy (Tipperary), Siobhan McGrath (Dublin)*, Emma Jane Gervin (Tyrone)

Right half forward:

Carla Rowe (Dublin), Olivia Divilly (Galway), Sinéad Cafferky (Mayo)

Centre forward:

Megan Glynn (Galway), Niamh McEvoy (Dublin), Aishling Moloney (Tipperary)

Left half forward:

Niamh Kelly (Mayo), Lyndsey Davey (Dublin)*, Mairéad Seoighe (Galway)

Right corner forward:

Sarah Rowe (Mayo), Sinéad Aherne (Dublin)*, Tracey Leonard (Galway)

Full forward:

Eimear Scally (Cork), Rachel Kearns (Mayo), Geraldine McLaughlin (Donegal)

Left corner forward:

Grace Kelly (Mayo), Orla Finn (Cork), Róisín Leonard (Galway)

*(denotes 2018 TG4 All Star)