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
Alan Brogan’s effort towards the end of the second half ran it close but the award this week goes to Mayo young gun Diarmuid O’Connor for his beauty a little earlier in the game.
Diarmuid might not be as prolific as his big bro Cillian, but his outside of the right boot effort shortly after half-time was a joy to behold.
The 'business at the back and sides, party up front' championship haircut of the week award
Normally, nobody else can win this award when Aidan O’Shea is on the pitch but special mention must go to Ciaran Kilkenny for the tidy do he's been sporting all season long.
Those three first-half points from play made everyone stand up and take notice of the Dublin centre-forward, but the haircut did no harm either.
The GAA shtyle statement of the week
It could only be Joe Brolly rocking the JOE Brolly having been presented with the hottest piece of GAA merchandise by our own editor Paddy McKenna at GAA HQ yesterday. https://twitter.com/PaddyMcKenna/status/638052423941128192 Not only can he use it to keep the rain away, but he can poke Michael Lyster with the pointy end when he needs to get a word in (never been a problem before) on The Sunday Game.
The 'did he get that from the soccer?' showboat of the week
The build-up to it wasn’t pretty, but give massive credit to Kevin McManamon for the way he finished Dublin’s second goal yesterday.
Granted, a lot of it was pure instinct, but lesser players wouldn’t have had the presence of mind to arc their body the way the Dublin forward did for his latest in a series of big goals in big games at HQ.
Sign that the GAA is getting soft award
We defy anyone that watched yesterday’s All-Ireland semi-final to suggest there was anything soft about it.
In fact, the game was characterised by a series of niggly and often nasty incidents between both sets of players, the result of a rivalry that has become increasingly heated in recent years.
Only in the GAA moment of the week
Things might have been heated on the pitch, but how wonderful was it to see both sets of supporters rise in unison in the 13
th minute for a round of applause in tribute to Darragh Doherty, the former Mayo minor who lost his life in a car crash last weekend.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNwPM5wDe0Q
A fitting and magnificent tribute.
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
It’s remarkably hard to pick a man of the match from a game like that but we’re going to concur with The Sunday Game and give it to Mayo’s Cillian O’Connor.
Aidan O’Shea had been hogging all the limelight going into the game, but O’Connor reminded us all why he’s been one of the game’s top forwards in the last few years with a brilliant display of leadership and free-taking.
How cool was that penalty by the way?
Roll on next Saturday.
All pics and footage courtesy of Inpho Photography and The Sunday Game.
