All signs point to Brian Fenton being voted Footballer of the Year

“Fento’s the man”, says Diarmuid Connolly, with absolute certainty. “He got my vote.”

In giving this "vote" to his Dublin team-mate – as in midfielder Brian Fenton – Connolly also highlights the difference between the selection of the GAA-GPA All Stars and the Player of the Year awards.

While the All Stars are selected by GAA correspondents within print, radio, TV and on-line media, the Player of the Year awards are voted on by members of the GPA intercounty playing body – and with that perhaps less open to dispute or scrutiny. It's hard to argue with the selection of any player decided by the players themselves.

Intercounty players

Both Connolly and Fenton were among the six Dublin footballers named as 2016 All Stars earlier this week, and Fenton now goes up against team-mate Ciarán Kilkenny and Mayo’s Lee Keegan for the title of Footballer of the Year, which will be announced live at the All Star banquet at Dublin’s National Convention Centre this evening (on RTÉ between 7.0 and 8.0pm).

Also announced live is the 2016 hurling All Star selection, plus the Hurler of the Year – the latter also decided by GPA intercounty playing body. (Both young footballer and young hurler are also voted on in a similar way).

Fenton remains the favourite for that outright football honour, the startling trajectory of his two-year intercounty career already confirmed with his second All Star. Dublin’s six All Star winners were still open to some dispute or scrutiny, as in some felt they should have won more.

The goalkeeper position was chief among them, Mayo’s David Clarke given the nod to receive a first-time award despite being dropped for the All-Ireland replay against Dublin. He was replaced because of management concerns about his kick-outs, a decision that came back to haunt them when replacement Rob Hennelly had an unhappy match, culminating in giving away a penalty and getting a black card.

Still, football’s two other goalkeeping All Star nominations – Dublin’s Stephen Cluxton and Tipperary’s Evan Comerford – were left wondering what if, or rather why not?

Tipperary football manager Liam Kearns suggests as much when expressing some disappointment his team had only collected one All Star winner in Michael Quinlivan, named at full forward. Comerford, suggested Kearns, was unlucky to miss out, as was another of the nominees, captain Peter Acheson.

“I’m delighted for Mikey Quinlivan,” says Kearns. “It’s a reflection on the work of the whole squad over the course of the year and I’m sure Mikey himself will say that. It’s an individual accolade at the end of the day and I’m sure Mikey would swap it for playing in an All-Ireland final if we got there.

“I’m a little bit disappointed we didn’t get a second one, maybe we deserved it for the year we had. I would consider both Evan Comerford and Peter Acheson very unlucky to miss out on All-Stars but it’s a very subjective process and not everybody is going to be happy.

“At least we have doubled the amount of football All-Stars in the county now (Declan Browne in 1998 and 2003 being the only previous one) and we had five nominations plus two players in for Young Player of the Year (Josh Keane and Jimmy Feehan).”

The 2016 hurling All Stars, meanwhile, will undoubtedly see All-Ireland winners Tipperary get the lion’s share of award recipients: their entire 15-man final line-up were nominated, claiming exactly one-third of the nominations and more than double what they achieved last year – a flair reflection of Tipp’s dominance throughout the summer, which climaxed with a nine-point win over reigning champions Kilkenny in September’s All-Ireland final, 2-29 to 2-20, Kilkenny’s heaviest final defeat in 52 years.

Full-forward berths

Among Tipp’s 15 nominations is full forward Séamus Callanan, their only All Star winner in 2015, along with first-time nominations such as Michael Breen at midfield and forward Dan McCormack: brothers Noel and McGrath are also nominated, as is John “Bubbles” O’Dwyer, and it’s possible Tipp could claim all three full-forward berths.

Callanan is also in contention for Hurler of the Year along with team-mate Pádraic Maher and Waterford’s Austin Gleeson.