Cluxton, Cooper, Clifford: If this isn't the greatest football team of the last 25 years . . .
Our On Is Team Cooper Out Own: As Their Kerry Great Eleven Colm Selected On The Playmaking
IT'S one thing picking a team of the year, even a team of the decade. But one spanning quarter of a century? To make the cut you’d to be bordering on being an institution, someone we could envisage a statue of outside your county grounds.
And to be the corner back or corner forward on a select like this, you needed to have been able to play elsewhere than just corner back or corner forward. This is 21st century football, people, not 1989 or even 1999 when players hardly moved out of their box in the grid. Remember all the commotion when Páidí moved Seámus Moynihan to full back in 2000? Almost everyone was sceptical because he wasn’t a specialist number three like Darren Fay. But what Páidí recognised was that Moynihan was more versatile than Fay or almost anyone else. He wasn’t so much confining his most complete footballer to the edge of the square as allowing him master yet another position – primarily to help Kerry win, naturally.
And so we’ve picked quite a few players here somewhere other than where they might have played most of their football. Because they could – and did – play in their allotted position here when their own county needed – and because a selection of this nature needed to accommodate a talent and career of their stature somewhere.
Why settle for just one of Tomás Ó Sé, Lee Keegan and James McCarthy – all primarily recognised as No.5s, all five-time All Star winners each – when you could play all three and they all occasionally played (and won All Stars) elsewhere? If a Gavin or Horan would have found a way to accommodate all three of them on the same team, why wouldn’t any fantasy manager? When we talk about position-less football these days, it’s not just the players that are no longer constrained to one position; managers aren’t restricted to playing them in the one spot either.
There are some hard cases. John O’Mahony’s brilliant Galway team got caught between two decades and two eras: still enough to have a number of nominees but no actual recipient. There was room for one Ulster titan at full forward (Canavan) but not two: more fuel for Michael Murphy in his comeback. Cork have no player here to show for their one All Ireland – but would they rather be Mayo with one player here (and a raft of nominees) but no All Ireland?
Everyone else can feel fairly represented. Armagh have someone here: the obvious common link between 2002 and 2024. Tyrone with twice as many All Irelands have twice as many representatives. And the exercise allows us remember that Kerry’s overall contribution to the century so far approximates Dublin’s; eight All Irelands to their nine, reflected by both counties have five players apiece on this elite XV.
In hurling this position must have been quite the headache for Enda McEvoy. So many legends to choose from: Cusack, Cummins, Fitzgerald, Fitzhenry – and none of those even ended up getting the nod. In football it was easy. Stephen Cluxton has not just been by a country kilometre the best goalkeeper of the new century: he has been its most influential and important footballer. Before the Cluxton kickout there was the Cusack puckout but the Parnells man was smart and brave enough to identify and act upon the value of a precise, and if necessary, shorter, restart. In changing how the game restarted, he changed how the game was played.
He didn’t neglect his other duties either. Like stopping shots, keeping clean-sheets (in Dublin’s two All-Ireland winning campaigns of this decade, he conceded just one goal over 13 games). And leading and winning. That place where captains raising silverware in the Hogan Stand? Call it the Cluxton Spot. During Jim Gavin’s tenure there were 21 major trophies available to Dublin. Cluxton ended up collecting and lifting 18 of them.
Diarmuid Murphy (Kerry), Niall Morgan (Tyrone).
In the public memory he’ll always be the centre back and driving force of the 2011-2012 revolution; the man who played that floating diagonal ball in for Michael Murphy to attack and devour Mayo, an assist as delicate and precise as the finish was ferocious and awesome. But before the glory years there were the dog days, like 2006 and 2009. Lacey won an All Star at corner back both years, literally holding up his corner when the house was falling down. When Jim McGuinness started his rebuild, he knew there was at least one pillar in place.
Marc Ó Sé (Kerry), Ryan McMenamin (Tyrone)
A name that sadly doesn’t quite have the resonance or reverence outside his county all these years later that it should, possibly because he has declined the limelight and media work – and Kerry senior team management – since finishing up. But what a footballer. For club, college, county, country, division. In how he prepared – long before Cian O’Neill or the term ever came to the county, ‘Pony’ personified high performance, married with old-school grit. In how he played: taking you on when he had it, taking it off you when you (initially) had it. Wherever he played, be that as an 18-year-old midfielder straight out of the Sem; the emergency full-back (and Footballer of the Year and All-Ireland winning captain) of 2000; or returning to his favourite and most natural habitat, the halfback line.
Johnny Cooper (Dublin), Michael Fitzsimons (Dublin).
It says everything about Keegan that no one – reasonable or reasonably – can quibble about his inclusion here. Yes, since you bring it up, he hasn’t an All Ireland like everyone else here has. But could you seriously accuse Lee Keegan of not performing on the biggest day of all? In four out of his six All Ireland final appearances he outscored his direct opponent; in the other two he held them to a combined one point. He is the highest-scoring back the sport has known while being possibly the best lockdown defender of his generation: Murphy, Kilkenny, Con, Connolly: at some point he held them all down – sometimes literally.
As for where we’ve picked him, well, he first broke onto the Mayo team at corner back. He ended his career there as well. The only person who could feel hard done by where we’ve positioned him is Keith Higgins, who won all four of his All Stars at left corner back, more than anyone else has in the position. And Higgins won’t complain. He knows: he himself was merely one of the best corner backs ever. Keegan is the best Mayo footballer ever.
Keith Higgins (Mayo), Philly McMahon (Dublin).
It was tough enough leaving one Ó Sé out of our backline in Marc so there was no way that we weren’t going to find a spot for Tomás. Thus we moved Keegan to the corner, McCarthy over to the wing and kept Tomás at his beloved No.5, a nod to his endearing intransigence as much as his sheer brilliance. Absorbed and personified the best of his family and childhood heroes – the toughness and cuteness and dash of both Páidí and Pony – to become an inspiration for others; Lee Keegan is on the record as saying he modelled his own game on Ó Sé’s.
Conor Gormley (Tyrone), Colm Boyle (Mayo).
Along with Moynihan, actually has fewer All Stars than anyone else here; the pair of them have ‘just’ three while everyone else has at least four. Yet this was one of the least contested and contentious selections of all (and not just because no one else has won more than three All Stars at No.6 either). If Larry Tompkins was, in the words of Pat Spillane, the first ‘professional’ Gaelic footballer for the zealotry of his commitment to his craft and sport, then McGeeney was the first of this century. Practically willed his county to their first-ever All Ireland – and two decades on, inspired them to another.
Cian O’Sullivan (Dublin), Graham Canty (Cork).
Edges the other Dublin JMc (2013-2015; 2017-2019; 2023-?) on the grounds of longevity. The prototype 21st-century player: could run all day, devour you in the tackle, pull down that must-win kickout, play the right pass (by hand or by boot) and if needs be, kick the big score. Never tired of work or winning. Admired by every opponent, loved by every teammate. The master of all the little things as well as the big moments.
Jack McCaffrey (Dublin), Phillip Jordan (Tyrone).
In recent years there’s been an inference from former players that the An Feár Laidir mindset that he personified may have cost Kerry a few All Irelands but that is negated by the sheer number of All Irelands he won Kerry – not just by his play but by his sheer presence reminding them and all around them that they were Kerry. During his playing days we kept hearing high fielding was a dying art; Darragh kept it alive. He came up against some terrific midfielders – McGrane, Whelan, Walsh, Nicholas Murphy – but at some stage or other he out-fielded, outsmarted, out-bullied or outlasted them all before buying them a pint for their troubles. Never actually won Footballer of the Year but for the noughties he was the Footballer of the Decade.
Ciarán Whelan (Dublin), Kevin Walsh (Galway)
Had – wow is it strange to talk about him in the past tense – the shortest inter-county career of any retired player here but packed so much into it. There was never a year where he wasn’t an All Star nomination or a Leinster champion. Could score and roam like Jacko, field and fight like Mullins. Combine all that and you had – he was – the complete midfielder.
Paul McGrane (Armagh), Aidan O’Shea (Mayo).
Would Dublin have won anything like the amount they’ve won had Kilkenny taken to Australia the way fellow half-forwards like Pearce Hanley and Tadhg Kennelly did? Their attack used to hinge around Bernard Brogan but as they evolved and improved the fulcrum increasingly became Kilkenny: their point guard, the conductor: the more the ball or baton was in his hands, they calculated, the more good things were likely to happen. Even in 2021 and 2022 when Dublin lost their air of invincibility, Kilkenny was an All Star both years, a measure of his defiance as much as his consistency and brilliance.
Brian Dooher (Tyrone), Paul Galvin (Kerry).
In case you’ve an issue with where we picked him; well first may we say that at least we picked him; one other 2000-2024 selection we saw somehow didn’t. Cooper was the first forward we pencilled down; with eight All Stars, more than any other footballer this century and more than any footballer ever not called Pat Spillane, he had to be.
There has been no better player to watch, no better player to see what no one else could see. Exhibit A: That Pass to Donnchadh Walsh for James O’Donoghue’s goal in the 2013 semi-final against the Dubs. That was his one year playing and winning an All Star somewhere other than in the full-forward line. For that pass and year alone he merits being our centre forward.
Declan O’Sullivan (Kerry), Diarmuid Connolly (Dublin).
Another supreme player who could play anywhere and had to be accommodated somewhere. We’ve gone for where both started out and finished up with Tyrone, but in the intervening years he crammed in so much: driving the county to its first All Ireland from midfield in 2003; kicking the back-to-within-one point from the No.11 spot in the epic semi-final with Armagh in 2005; winning Footballer of the Year from full forward in 2008, even though he launched a few of his five points from play in the final out by the No.12 spot having first sold another Cavanagh Shimmy. Maybe doesn’t quite get the love he deserves, being at times out-spoken and overly-confident for some tastes, but along with Canavan he’s the best footballer Tyrone has produced.
Paul Flynn (Dublin), Oisín McConville (Armagh).
Look, we could have played it cute and accommodated one of our near-miss retirees here on the grounds that Clifford is only midway through his career. But does anyone really doubt that Fossa’s finest hasn’t already demonstrated that he’s one of the best to ever lace them up? Has been to the GAA what LeBron James has been to the NBA: the most heralded and hyped debutant ever yet gone on to exceed those expectations, barring perhaps the championship medal count.
Steven McDonnell (Armagh), Pádraic Joyce (Galway).
Alright: so this wasn’t quite straightforward. When we picked our team of the 2000s, Canavan wasn’t on it; while he had been our player of the 1990s, he’d played little enough in the noughties: in only three of its seasons did the number of championship games he started exceed the number that he didn’t.
But here’s the thing. We’re picking more than a team of a decade here. And Canavan was more than just a generational talent; he was an epochal one. And since it’d be a stretch to think that a man with no All Ireland medal would have squeezed out any one of Sheedy, O’Rourke, Keaveney, Connor, Tompkins, Fitzgerald, Egan or Power in a 1975-1999 selection, we’re slotting him in here. He did enough winning in the 2000s and more than enough penance in the 1990s to be duly honoured.
Michael Murphy (Donegal), Kieran Donaghy (Kerry).
In all our time watching football over this past quarter of a century, it’s hard to think of a time that one individual player has commanded and electrified a full Croke Park like Bernard Brogan did in the 2010 All Ireland semi-final. Cork actually won but Brogan was so good that day (1-6 from play) and that year he became the first – and remains the only – player to win Footballer of the Year without his team even reaching the All Ireland final. Dublin would go on to produce other exceptional strike forwards – Con, Connolly, Mannion, Dean Rock – but Brogan was their first since Barney Rock in the mid-80s. From June 2009 to May 2016 he wasn’t just the poster boy for the sport: he was the best strike forward in the business.
Con O’Callaghan (Dublin), Conor McManus (Monaghan).
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