Forget the All-Stars, these are the awards that GAA players really want to win.
The Maurice Fitz award for the score with the most outrageous curl of the week
There was a lot to like about Barry John Keane’s ‘insurance point’ in the dying stages of a titanic semi-final yesterday.
It was gutsy, it sealed the win for Kerry and he caught it so sweetly that even though it started way outside the posts, you always knew it was going straight over the black spot.
The ‘business at the back and sides, party up front’ championship haircut of the week award
The rain didn’t help him yesterday but we have an awful lot of time for the do that Tyrone’s Conor Meyler has been showcasing all season long. It’ll be the McKenna Cup in January before most of us see Conor in action again and we can only plead with him not to do anything dramatic with the hair over the winter because he’s already got it down.
The GAA shtyle statement of the week
He wasn’t even playing but there can only be one winner after pictures surfaced over the weekend of the cornrows Aidan O’Shea may well be exhibiting to the world in Sunday’s All-Ireland semi-final showdown with Dublin. A risky fashion move perhaps, but O’Shea’s fellow county man Ciaran McDonald showed in the past that they can definitely be pulled off and we fancy that all the kids in Mayo will be asking for the ‘O’Shea’ in the barbers if he can help down the Dubs this weekend.
The ‘did he get that from the soccer?’ showboat of the week
A deserving man of the match yesterday, Johnny Buckley was in the zone right from the off and his double hop-dummy before knocking over a first half point was a glorious sight.
Sign that the GAA is getting soft award
There was a time when a kickout in Gaelic Football was just a ‘keeper punting a ball as far down the field as he could.
Now, according to Kevin McStay, some of them are ‘sexy’.
Someone will need to give Kevin some ice to cool him down when master of the kickouts Stephen Cluxton is in action next weekend.
Only in the GAA moment of the week
“The referee did something to Tyrone that consenting adults usually do in private.” Joe Brolly, 2015.
Honestly, in what other sport in the world would a pundit a) come out with and b) get away with, a comment like that?
Never change Joe.
JOE’s Guaranteed Irish Sports’ Star of the Week Award, a tribute to the tradition of incredibly long names for award titles in the GAA
The award this week goes to Donnchadh Walsh, who has been described as ‘under-rated’ so many times that he’s in real danger of actually being over-rated for being under-rated.
Another fine outing from the wing forward yesterday and a lovely self-deprecating tribute from his former colleague Tomás Ó’Sé on The Sunday Game too.
Well played Donnchadh.
All pics and footage courtesy of Inpho Photography and The Sunday Game.