By Kevin McStay I have prepared for major club championship matches where the announcement of the team was quickly followed by the famous 'storming-out' of the dressing room and the resulting madness and daftness that resulted. I have attended team meetings where strong-willed players have demanded to know why so-and-so has consistently made a starting fifteen despite a lack commitment to preparing, training and indeed the game on match-day itself. I was part of county panels for nearly a decade where hardly a year passed but some player or group of players felt hard done by when it came to selection. In 1989, the year Mayo reached their first football final in almost forty years I spent most of that season listening to players, pundits and supporters wondering just why I was making any of those starting line outs. So, I guess the selection of football teams and the subsequent debate, controversy, anger and eventually falling out is part and parcel of GAA club and county life up and down the country and the surprise these days is that there is surprise. Sport is very often a matter of opinion and the punter loves lists: Who is the best player? Who scored the best goal? Who contributes the most? Which goalkeeper made the best save? What is the decade's best fifteen? These questions very often have no answer. The annual Vodafone All Stars announcement heralds the same questions and despite them running for nearly four decades now, their selection poses a task that is simply not possible to get right, at least to everybody's satisfaction. This year's edition was no different to the many that have gone before it. Where are the Ulster players on the team? Why did Connacht not get a mention? How come the All Ireland finalists dominate again? Kerry got seven gongs while Cork picked up five, which only left three for the remaining 30 plus counties! What about Wicklow? Antrim? Tyrone? Galway? How did Tadgh Kennelly get on when he played so little? And what about Tommy Walsh? His contribution at vital stages of the All Ireland series was surely the main reason Kerry won out. What about his four magnificent points from play when it really mattered? And perhaps the big question from this year's announcement is how come the Young Player of the Year, Michael Murphy, failed to get on the All Stars team while another young player, Daniel Goulding did? The obvious question that arises is: who really is the Young Player of the Year? To my mind if Daniel Goulding makes the line-up he then gets the award. When I attended the All Star announcements in the 1980s there was always controversy. Back then the three nominations for each place sat at the same table with their wives or partners and that, for sure, was a recipe for disaster! No sooner would the envelope be opened but disappointed players and ladies stood up and headed for the foyer/bar/toilets and one could be certain they would have no problem discussing your selection at their loved ones expense later that evening. The Sunday Game night-time show went out this year in front of a live studio audience. Once the final itself had ended, and the various pieces of analysis sorted out, three of us headed to the office to sit down and consider our RTE Sunday Game 2009 Team of the Year. We had about ninety minutes to get it right or at least as right as we could. In the days leading up to the final our editor had looked for a sketch outline of our respective teams but of course the rider of All Ireland final displays and how they would alter radically our selections was attached. And so myself, Dara O Cinneide and Tony Davis retired to the committee room to gather our thoughts. Even with only three judges the debate can swing over and back, so imagine how the All Stars selection committee of perhaps three or four times that number gets a decision through? But we came out the other end with a team and had it ready for the public by the close of the programme. Many in the audience did not agree - Mickey Harte, John O'Mahony and Mick O'Dwyer questioned the composition and made good points. One of the main items each year is the part played by performance in the National Leagues and indeed, the provincial championships for it is true that big displays in Croke Park count a lot more than those down in Mayo, Wexford, Clare or Donegal on cold wet spring days. But perhaps that is only right - after all, Croke Park is the home of the really big championship encounters and the All Ireland series is held there each year. We can hardly talk about the lack of competitiveness in many of the provincial encounters and then want displays there accepted as eternal truths and proof of footballing prowess. But back to our RTE Sunday Game 2009 Team of the Year again. All three of us were happy enough with the selection. Time is a factor and we did not have a great deal of that to reflect on the very difficult calls, the marginal ones that very often make your selection look unbalanced or just plain wrong. The audience reaction was not very heartening either, but again, like many pundits and commentators, they too can display biases and have agendas. Managers always want to see their own players get the nod. A few short weeks later the real All Stars were announced and it was most gratifying to note that we had matched thirteen of our team with the All Star selection committee. It meant we were at least in the ballpark and despite a smaller selection panel and the constraints of time, we got a really good first shot at who the season's best players were. Young Murphy failed to make the cut and Paddy Kelly was unlucky; Tadgh Kennelly surprised everybody but then, his story was compelling. The RTE pundits went for Murphy as their Young Player of the Year and Paul Galvin as the senior Player of the Year. Both went on to win the major prizes except the Donegal man failed to clinch a starting place. There you go then, a typical end of season controversy in the never-ending story of GAA life. Doctors differ and patients die, selectors differ and players get sore bums on the bench. It was always ever so. Tweet

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