2006 All Stars

[Datsun Donaghy]

At the risk of coming across a little bit high and mighty which is not the attention, I would suggest Francie killed the contest by fouling him so many times and forcing the Ref into doing this. It's not like his card was unwarranted, he had been blatantly hanging out of Donaghy all day. Blaming the Ref is a little bit disingenuous to my mind.

Definitely not high and mighty!  Definitely not a reference to the Armagh v Kerry match which I attended and Donaghy's post match comments are a testament to the fact that you have called this one all wrong my friend!

[BallyhaiseMan]

as had been said before wasnt a good year for full backs....
despite being roasted by Ronan Clarke in one of the games i thought Owens did play alot of football over the cours eof the championship,so id say he deserves it.
Cluxtons placement of his kickouts are something every goalkeeper could be learn from...
How many times did he find Shane Ryan Free during the championship..hes a very good keeper,so no complaints there from me.
While im a big admirer of Seamus Moynihan, i dont know how he got an all star on front of Bryan Cullen...Thought Cullen was magnificant throughout the championship...albeit a little disappointing against Mayo.
Midfield...Thought Paul McGrane had a storming year,but its hard to see past Murphy and O Se...
Agree with the forward selections.

[Hound]

I was at all but the mayo matches bar the london match and dillon and mortimer were both better player over the course of the season.
Sillon was our best player and mort did the scoring.

You forgot the "in my opinion" bit.
Its funny that despite Dillon being the better player all year, he didnt get half the stick for not performing in the final.

I thought Bellew did reasonably well on Donaghy, although obviously in the end Donaghy got the better of him. I thought the yellow card was a 50/50 decision, could have gone either way. Also in their duel, Donaghy got more assistance from his teammates than Francie did.

[Rufus T Firefly]

It was commented on here at the time, certainly by Hardy if my memory serves me well, that the ref effectively killed the Francie v Donaghey contest with his use of the yellow early on and the immortal line "once more and you're off!" It was after this that Donaghey did the damage.

At the risk of coming across a little bit high and mighty which is not the attention, I would suggest Francie killed the contest by fouling him so many times and forcing the Ref into doing this. It's not like his card was unwarranted, he had been blatantly hanging out of Donaghy all day. Blaming the Ref is a little bit disingenuous to my mind.

I will say this - it was harsh on Francie that of the nominated full backs, he was the only one that actually had to mark Donaghy this year, the other two were untested in that regard and it's fair to say that they mightn't have done any better. Francie failed a test that neither owens nor Canty sat, as it were.

No, that's fair enough Lone Shark - what I would say is that I watched Owens do something similar to Ronan Clarke over 140 minutes plus and he was never in any danger of leaving the pitch. I just get the impression with Francie it's a case of 'give a dog a bad name'.   

[slow corner back]

Enough of this football malarkey, whats the betting for the hurling all stars? Cats to clean up again? Kilkenny 6 or 7, Cork four or five, Waterford two probably Ken McGrath and big Dan, Clare one or two plus Eoin Kelly from Tipp hard to see anyone outside this making the cut.

[DuperDee]

The talk of Francie not getting a all star is strange. He has a limited amount of football ability. What you get from him every day is everything he has got and some days that is not enough. For a number of years he was protected with Geezer sweeping. He was never exposed as the space in front of his was closed down. When Armagh started to struggle defensively francie suffered. McKeever is a very good centre half but was not a natural sweeper like Geezer. I looked forward to the Kerry game as i thought the contest with Donaghy would be a good one. The truth is that Francie met someone who was stronger in the air and matched his physical strength. The real difference with donaghy was that when he hit the ground with the ball he was a footballer. He had just too much in the locker for Francie. Donaghy had more to offer than height and Francie could not cope. He will still be able to do a job but will have more diffucult days ahead that all star days

[Bogball XV]

Why does everyone think CLuxton is the best keeper in the game right now?  Why did everyone think that O'leary was the best keeper of his era?  I have never seen either of them do much of note, now, I'm not saying they're crap, but given how little they're tested then why does everyone rate them so highly??
For my money the best keepers of the past 20 yrs have been:
Martin MacNamara - best shot stopper in the game, prone to the odd mistake though!!
Declan O'Keefe
Cormac O'Sullivan
John O'Leary - he must be I suppose, he got a wild pile of allstars, but a lot of goalkeeper allstars are by default imo
Damian McCusker
Gary Walsh
Fergal Byron?
Cluxton?
Diarmuid Murphy
Reilly James? from Cavan made some super saves in 2005, but didn't get the chance to shine this year.

BTW this isn't an anti-Dub rant, I thought Cullen was robbed last year and again this year tbh.

[Gnevin]

Yeah your right O'Leary only won  8 Leinster Titles    2 All-Ireland    5 All-Stars  while doing nothing of note glad we cleared that up and good thing too your" this isn't an anti-Dub rant" was starting too look like an anti Dublin rant . 

I also love that you say they both  done nothing of note and then included them in a 10 player short-list of the best keeper in the last 20 years . Goal keeping must really be gone too the dog  since after the 80's

[OkeyDoke]

Peter Burke was an excellent keeper, saved Mayo's bacon on many occassions.
Great shot stopper, great leader and a booming kickout

[dubnut]

"Why does everyone think CLuxton is the best keeper in the game right now?  Why did everyone think that O'leary was the best keeper of his era?  I have never seen either of them do much of note"


Just saying its not an Anti Dub rant doesnt make it true 

To say you havent seen either do much of note is ridiculous, Cluxton didnt have as much to do this year as the team were dominant in most games.
But anyone who has watched him regularly over the past few years will have seen him pull off a huge amount of brilliant saves.
And to say O'Leary didnt do much of note is just ridiculous!

Incidentally rumour has it O'Leary will be running for FF in north Dublin in next years election.

[Gnevin]

Its not rumour it's confirmed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_O%27Leary_%28Gaelic_footballer%29  he's a finna fáil

Of course he'll do "nothing of note"

[blanketattack]

Seamus Moynihan was completely deserving of his All-Star. He was Kerry's Man Of The Match in the Munster Final and the semi-final. He also played well in the final and 1/4 final.

Cullen only played well against Leinster opposition. In his one game against non-Leinster opposition he was poor. Seeing that this year was the first time a Leinster team made it to the All-Ireland semi-final since 2002, the good displays against Leinster can't considered to be worth that much in the big scheme of things.
Mike McCarthy's poor display against Ronan Clarke cost him his All-Star.
I can't understand Armagh people using Bellew's yellow card as an excuse (I bet Francie isn't). There's been dozens of occasions where backs get early yellow cards and still go on to completely dominate their man.

[North Longford]

Seamus Moynihan was completely deserving of his All-Star. He was Kerry's Man Of The Match in the Munster Final and the semi-final. He also played well in the final and 1/4 final.

Blanket you judiciously ommited the Longford game.
If Francie is losing an All star for one bad game then Seamus is lucky as ge got a far bigger roasting than francie did

[Bogball XV]

Its not rumour it's confirmed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_O%27Leary_%28Gaelic_footballer%29  he's a finna fáil

Of course he'll do "nothing of note"

Well if he's anything like the other north dublin ff's the only thing of note he'll do is to take a few bribes and maybe mow down the odd pedestrian.
Listing his honours is hardlly a way of explaining how he was rated so highly - listing important saves might be more beneficial to your arguments.

To say you havent seen either do much of note is ridiculous, Cluxton didnt have as much to do this year as the team were dominant in most games.
But anyone who has watched him regularly over the past few years will have seen him pull off a huge amount of brilliant saves.
And to say O'Leary didnt do much of note is just ridiculous!

I say I have seen neither do anything of note, is a statement of fact - i said that, because I have not.  I do appreciate that I haven't seen much of either bar big games, but I can't recall any great stops from either.  This used to really bug me about O'Leary, he always reknowned as the greatest keeper in the game, Cluxton has now been awarded the mantle - i'm just asking why?
If, as you point out, Cluxton didn't do much this year, why on earth did he get the allstar over the likes of Quirke, who I did see make a number of excellent saves this year.
Oh, and to the Mayo lad, yeah Burke was another great shot stopper.

[Canalman]

BOGBALL XV , Cluxton got an Allstar only for 2006, as far as I have read nobody has said he is the greatest in game.
Jeez the anti Dublin bias has not gone away you know.