Give it to the Gooch

As the dust settles on yet another season of Gaelic football all that is left to decide is who gets the Footballer of the Year award. If you read the papers and look at your favourite bookmakers odds, then it is destined to go to only one man, Alan Brogan.

Now the elder Brogan brother has been very good all year, exceptional at times, and he kicked the opening points of Sunday’s final. He has been a great servant to the game in Dublin and a bit like Ryan Giggs a few years back, few would begrudge him picking up the gong to cap off a very satisfying year.

But is there is someone who is arguably even more deserving than Brogan for the award. How about Colm Cooper? Incredibly, the ginger genius has never won the Footballer of the Year award, despite being the standout player of the last decade. But he deserves it not just for his body of work to date, as he had a very effective 2011.

Gooch was the top-scorer in the Championship, with 2-23 in five games, with just 0-6 of those coming from frees. Aside from the bare facts, the Killarney man turned the semi-final against Mayo decisively with a stunning goal and he put Kerry in pole position with another gem in the All-Ireland final.

Some will point to being held scoreless from play in the Munster final against Cork, but his movement created the space for others to shine that day and it was his only slightly below-par showing all year.

Others will argue that the winner has to be on the title-winning side but it didn’t happen last year when Bernard Brogan won it, despite Cork taking Sam down to the south-west. The argument was that Cork’s win was a team effort, without any individual star. Surely Dublin are another team in every sense of the word, with 20 equal efforts dragging them to their goal.

The younger Brogan was in tremendous form last year but just because Gooch maintained his superhuman standard of play once again in 2011, should that be held against him?

Another annual argument is that the entire year is not taken into consideration and that the only games that really count for the Player of the Year award are the two semi-finals and the final. Based on these criteria then the prize looks Killarney-bound too as Cooper notched 2-10 in those two games and was the Kingdom’s best player in both games.

The other contenders heading the market, like Darran O’Sullivan at 2/1 and Stephen Cluxton at 15/2, have contributed over the season, and over previous years too, but does Gooch really merit his no-hoper odds of 33/1?

Alan Brogan is unbackable at 4/11, and was even before the final, but before the prize is handed out, shouldn’t all the candidates get a fair appraisal? If you do, then the Gooch should be in with a shout.