Sigerson team to spark debate

GAELIC GAMES:NOT SINCE the GAA dreamed up its Team of the Millennium will a list of celebrated players generate so much debate. An Comhairle Ardoideachais – the GAA's Higher Education authority – yesterday announced the Ulster Bank Sigerson Cup Team of the Century, to coincide with next month's centenary celebrations of the football competition.

It’s something of a “who’s who” of Gaelic football, although there are some notable absentees. Not a single Dublin footballer, for example, and essentially no Sigerson player from the last decade. If fact the most modern players to be included are former Kerry All-Ireland winner Séamus Moynihan, who played Sigerson football with both UCC and IT Tralee from 1994 to 1999 – and Tyrone’s Peter Canavan of St Mary’s, and Derry’s Seán Marty Lockhart of UUJ.

UCD hosted the first competition in 1911 and will play host again next month, and they certainly are well represented. There are six former UCD players in total: John O’Keeffe (Kerry) 1970-1975, Seán Flanagan (Mayo) 1944-1946, PJ Duke (Cavan) 1945-1950, Pádraig Carney (Mayo) 1945-1950, Jim McDonnell (Cavan) 1950-1954 and Jackie Walsh (Kerry) 1971-1975.

Last November, An Comhairle Ardoideachais announced 60 nominations, broken down into four goalkeepers, 24 defenders, eight midfielders and another 24 forwards. At the time the nominations were criticised for being overloaded with players from the past, with suggestions the scheme would have been better served with two teams – one from the first 50 years, and a second from the last 50 years.

Indeed the majority of the nominations do come from the earlier years of the Sigerson Cup, which was first staged in 1911 when a trophy was donated by former UCD University Professor, Dr George Sigerson, to mark that first year of the third-level competition – and actually presented to eventual winners UCD. Only a few footballers from the modern era even made the list of nominations, such as DCU’s Bryan Cullen, Paul Finlay of Monaghan and Galway’s Michael Meehan – but none of them were deemed good enough to make the final list.

“It was a most challenging task to nominate the best 15 to have played over a 100-year period,” according to An Comhairle Ardoideachais. “Using a combination of historical records including contemporary press reports, personal knowledge of players dating back to the 1940s and anecdotal evidence, the selection committee endeavoured to select players who represented their colleges with distinction in the Ulster Bank Sigerson Cup competition during the last century.”

Another of the main criteria was a clear commitment to the Sigerson competition as full-time students and the demonstration of superior football quality.

UCD players claimed both midfield berths: Jim McDonnell of Cavan won three medals, and was ever-present in the 1950s for UCD, while Pádraig Carney, of Mayo also won three medals, between 1945-50. Kerry’s Maurice Fitzgerald of UCC and Kerry is also named in the forwards even though he only won one medal, between 1987-90