Just five Dubs in All-Star football team as David Clifford and Aaron Gillane scoop top awards

It is also a case of history on the double.

When Gillane was voted by his fellow players as PwC GAA/GPA Hurler of the Year for 2023, it meant the award had gone to three different Patrickswell clubmen in consecutive years – two-time winner Cian Lynch in 2021, Diarmaid Byrnes last year and now their prolific comrade.

Clifford, meanwhile, stands alone as the first player to be voted back-to-back Footballer of the Year – and the first since Mayo’s Andy Moran in 2017 to win the award despite losing an All-Ireland final.

This wasn’t the only talking point arising from this year’s televised All-Stars banquet at the RDS, with Dublin forced to settle for five winners – their lowest representation as champions in this record-shredding era, and just one more than runners-up Kerry and beaten semi-finalists Derry.

But there was also joy unconfined for seven first-time winners, including Monaghan’s sole representative, Conor McCarthy, and Enda Smith. The latter becomes Roscommon’s first All-Star in 22 years and the first football winner from outside the top-eight championship counties since 2010.

As ever, there will be as much attention on those who missed out, and perhaps the unluckiest loser is Dublin’s Paul Mannion, who crowned his comeback season with a man-of-the-match performance against Kerry in the final.

It’s reasonable to surmise, however, that Clifford would gladly swap places with Mannion if it meant lifting Sam Maguire last July.

The Fossa wunderkind, still only 24, was the obvious Footballer of the Year in 2022. This year, he reprised myriad sublime moments as creator and executioner before his radar went askew in the last 20 minutes of a pulsating decider with Dublin.

The All-Star selectors in the media had nominated Clifford along with Dublin’s Brian Fenton and Derry’s Brendan Rogers, raising eyebrows in the process with their omission of Dublin skipper James McCarthy.

The ultimate decision was down to their peers, whose vote sees Clifford join Fenton (2018 and ’20) and Meath’s Trevor Giles (’96 and ’99) as the All-Stars scheme’s only two-time football winners.

The now-defunct Texaco Footballer of the Year was won four times (and back-to-back twice) by Kerry’s Jack O’Shea, while Dublin’s Jimmy Keaveney was another two-in-a-row winner.

As for this year’s All-Stars football team, there is bound to be some disgruntlement in the capital, coming after a season that finished with Dessie Farrell’s renaissance men as champions.

In the nine years from 2011 onwards that Dublin have scaled the summit, this is the first time their haul has dipped as low as five. On three occasions, they settled for six winners; four times, they had seven, and they claimed nine in 2020.

Mannion is a notable half-forward omission, given his pivotal influence at the business end, and it means that first-time recipient Colm Basquel is the only Dublin forward to make the final cut.

This compares with three from Kerry in the guise of David Clifford (his fifth award), his older brother Paudie and Seán O’Shea (both winning their third). Incredibly, the Clifford siblings have now made the team three years running.

Brian Howard is another Dub with strong claims who ultimately misses out, albeit in a hotly contested half-back division. The three places here are filled by James McCarthy (relocated from midfield where the Fenton/Rogers axis was always likely to shade it), Derry dynamo Gareth McKinless and the Monaghan McCarthy, Conor.

Mention of Howard – such a readily available kick-out option – brings us to Stephen Cluxton. Back from a two-year sabbatical, he becomes Dublin’s record All-Star (with seven), the most decorated goalkeeper (one more than fellow Dub John O’Leary), the oldest winner (a month shy of his 42nd birthday) and one whose latest award comes a staggering 21 years after his first.

With Cluxton and McCarthy joined by full-back Mick Fitzsimons, their fellow nine-time All-Ireland medallist, it spells recognition for all three members of Dublin’s record-breaking club.

Elsewhere, Derry’s haul of four is eye-catching for a team that failed to reach the final, although Conor McCluskey, Rogers and Shane McGuigan were all perceived as virtual shoo-ins.

Karl O’Connell may have enjoyed an Indian summer, but if there was only going to be one Monaghan half-back on the team, it was always likely to be McCarthy. A long-time forward converted to defence, he counter-attacked to devastating effect, shooting 2-12 (all bar one point from play) in the championship.

Whereas an inside forward line of the younger Clifford, McGuigan and the born-again Basquel looked nailed-on, the half-forward line had few such certainties. However, Smith’s maiden All-Star is not alone due reward for his consistency through spring and summer – especially his man-of-the-match displays against Mayo, Sligo and Kildare – but also a reflection of the new championship system.

With more SFC matches guaranteed, it meant Smith had a sufficient body of work to stake his claim – even though Roscommon were eliminated at the last-12 stage, before the actual quarter-finals.

This hasn’t happened since Sligo’s Charlie Harrison and Louth’s Paddy Keenan were honoured 13 years ago.

Meanwhile, in a nod to the future, the young player of the year awards went to Derry footballer Ethan Doherty and Clare hurler Mark Rodgers.