GPA award for Moynihan

Seamus Moynihan just can't avoid the spotlight this season. Yesterday, the Kerry captain was handed the Gaelic Players' Association monthly football award for August, but his focus remains on the All-Ireland replay with Galway on Saturday week.

There is also increasing speculation on whether Moynihan will play a role in the first International Rules series game with Australia in Croke Park on October 8th - the day after the All-Ireland replay. The Irish manager Brian McEniff has revealed that one of the six Kerry and Galway players in his original panel has indicated his interest in playing in the first Test - 24 hours after the replay.

Moynihan was player of the series after the two Tests in Australia last year and would be of immense value to McEniff should he be physically able to return and play the following day. McEniff has not expanded his panel beyond the original stand-by players selected although it is expected that some of the Galway and Kerry players will be available for the second Test a week later.

The GPA's hurling player of the month award for August, meanwhile, went to Kilkenny's Denis Byrne. His crucial impact in the second half of the All-Ireland semi-final against Galway helped steer Kilkenny to their third successive final - which they ultimately won with remarkable ease.

Moynihan and Byrne are the fourth set of players to win the GPA awards since the sponsorship deal was struck with Carphone Warehouse last May. They join Paddy Christie (Dublin), John McEntee (Armagh) and Anthony Tohill (Derry) for football and John Power (Kilkenny), Sean Og O hAilpin (Cork) and John Leahy (Tipperary) for hurling.

Wexford football manager Ger Halligan has set out to find more "experienced" back-up for his management team as the panel gets back into training for the upcoming league fixtures.

Among the individuals that have been in conversation with Halligan has been Tommy Lyons, the former Offaly manager, who has been out of the inter-county limelight since quitting the Offaly post at the end of last year's championship.

"We've got to improve our standard of football in Wexford if we want to compete against the best teams in the country," he said. "We want to go higher, and to achieve that, we need to look to someone of a higher standard. So we are talking to people but no one has been confirmed as yet."

Halligan is hopeful he will have found someone to join the senior back-room team of himself, and selectors Micheal Furlong and Declan Carthy, in an advisory capacity before the league begins next month. Wexford were disappointed by their challenge against Dublin in this year's provincial championship quarter-final despite their encouraging win in the Leinster round-robin series.

Three of Carlow's top players have decided to leave the inter-county football scene. Pat Roe, the new manager, was shocked when Eire Og duo, Willie Quinlan and Jody Morrissey, announced they were retiring from the inter-county scene. They were joined by attacker Ronan Donnolly.

Roe will have to make do without the experienced duo for his first competitive outing against Wexford next Saturday. Quinlan's last inter-county appearance lasted just five minutes when he was red carded in his sides championship defeat to Wexford.

The GAA announced yesterday the 1999 and 2000 Eircell football All Stars will travel to Dubai in January of next year for a six-day trip that will involve a game between both squads.

This year's All Star line-up will be announced at the end of November, and the game will take place in the Dubai Exiles Rugby Club which will be transformed into a GAA pitch for the occasion.