All-Stars a reflection of Cork hurling's recent issues

The recent All-Star award ceremony barely caused a ripple in Cork, as despite a number of hurling nominations, there was never a realistic chance of any gongs heading to Leeside this year.

Cork ended up receiving four All-Star nominations in the form of defenders Damian Cahalane and Ciaran Joyce, midfielder Darragh Fitzgibbon and forward Patrick Horgan, while Castlemartyr centre-back Joyce was also nominated for the Young Hurler of the Year award. Ultimately, being nominated was as good as it was going to get for the foursome.

Six counties emerged from the Munster and Leinster round-robin provincial championship dogfights, to contest the All-Ireland series, and Cork weren’t one of them. Any chances of individual awards went up in smoke by the Rebel’s failure to get out of Munster.

Yes, the smallest margins were involved in this early elimination, with those two one-point defeats away to Clare and Limerick proving fatal to Cork hopes, but that’s just the cruel nature of top-level sport.

Horgan leads the way in the current squad with the four All-Stars he picked up in the 2013, '17, '18 and '19 campaigns. 

Seamus Harnedy has two from 2013 and 2018, Mark Coleman has one from 2017 and Darragh Fitzgibbon got one in 2018. 

And there it ends. 

No other current player has been deemed good enough to receive one of the end-of-the-season awards. There have been other nominations, but no reason to splash out on a pricy tux.

Strangely, Cork didn’t get a single award in 2021 despite reaching the All-Ireland final that year. That final was obviously a disaster from a Cork perspective, but to have the run to the final completely ignored looks odd in retrospect.

ICONIC

There are no surprises for guessing the Cork man with the most All-Stars, although bear in mind they only started in 1971, so that rules out Ringy. How many would he have gotten? The answer is Jimmy Barry-Murphy, who collected seven in total, with five of those being in hurling and two in football. 

Only Colm Cooper, Pat Spillane, Tommy Walsh, DJ Carey and Henry Shefflin have received more awards than JBM, with Shefflin topping the list with 11.

John Fenton, Tony O’Sullivan and Ray Cummins (three hurling and two football) are next on the Cork role of honour with five each. Diarmuid O’Sullivan, Ger Cunningham and Denis Coughlan join Patrick Horgan with four each. Joe Deane, Seán Óg Ó hAilpin, Brian Corcoran, Jerry O’Connor, Tom Cashman, John Horgan, Martin Doherty, Charlie McCarthy, Dermot McCurtain, Seanie O’Leary, Ronan Curran have three each. 

That is quite the list of names right there. 

There are 12 further players with two and 25 with a single award. We could certainly do with adding to those lists in the years ahead.

For the record, Cork have three footballers who have also received three All-Stars – Steven O’Brien, Larry Tompkins and Graham Canty.

It is no surprise that the likes of Kerry and Kilkenny top the individual All-Star lists given the number of All-Ireland titles gobbled up by the counties down the years. 

What is surprising is that the current generation of Dublin footballers are still playing catch up to them, with Stephen Cluxton only getting to seven this year, although midfielder Brian Fenton will probably end up topping the list from a Dub perspective. He now has six and at 30 years of age you would think that he should have at least a couple more in him, as long as Dublin stay competitive at the top level, which you expect is a given.

Winning All-Stars when winning All-Irelands is almost a given, so in a way the presence of the likes of Tipp’s Eoin Kelly and Limerick’s Joe McKenna in the six awards list is more impressive than some of the other recipients. Kelly ended up with two All-Irelands while McKenna won just one in 1973, so for them both to reach six was an incredible achievement.

The bottom line is that complaining about the lack of All-Star awards is akin to saying you don’t have water when you don’t have a well. 

Get a well and the water will follow.

When Cork get their hands on the Liam MacCarthy Cup again bonuses like All-Stars will quickly follow.