The Baby Reindeer award: This one goes to the Cork footballers. We’re not sure if they’re leading us on or being led on themselves, but they have this incredible ability to convince people that they’re something they’re not. Tipped to go up out of Division Two, they lost their first three before escaping bother. They ran Kerry close in the Munster final and beat Donegal in Pairc Úi Rinn before showing their other side in defeats by Tyrone and Louth that ended their year at the last 12. Unless you were there, it’s impossible to be sure what the right story is with them.
The Thomas Crooks award: If Dylan McHugh’s shot goes a few inches to the left, he takes an All-Ireland final to extra-time, maybe wins it and ends up Footballer of the Year. Instead, he gets this and you’re Googling who Thomas Crooks is and realising you’d remember his name already if his shot had two weeks earlier had gone a few inches to the right.
The Rory McIlroy award: For their ability to turn a win into a loss, it has to be Mayo. Three times this summer they led big games into stoppage time and all three times, they failed to win. They led the Connacht final against Galway by two, the group stage game with Dublin by one and the same against Derry. Had they held on against the Dubs, they wouldn’t have had to play Derry at all. Winners of the award for the 14th consecutive year.
The Mick & Pam award: This goes to two Kerry men who might not have main character status but they gave off main character energy. If David Clifford and Sean O’Shea are the Gavin & Stacey of the piece, the real stars in 2024 were Paudie Clifford and Brian Ó Beaglaoich. The latter was one of the most unfortunate omissions from an Allstar cast in a long time after a brilliant summer. Paudie Clifford carried the show in attack.
The anti-Brat Summer award: Nobody would have predicted Armagh’s makeover that ironically relied on the softening of a few of their harder edges. They didn’t receive a single red or black card in the league or championship this year. It was the opposite of a brat summer, and their good behaviour had its ultimate reward.
The Casandra Ventura award: Goes to Jim McGuinness and Donegal for their performance in Celtic Park back in April. Derry had strutted through the league with an air of invincibility about them but the flaws were there, and too many people knew about them for them to keep on getting away with it. Donegal filed a suit against the sweeper ‘keeper and brought Derry’s world crashing down around them.
The Damien Duff award: Certain people compel you to look at them even if you’ve absolutely no interest in doing so. The League of Ireland has never had a figure that’s done that like Damien Duff has. It was impossible to be unaware of Shelbourne winning the league. And so for a GAA equivalent, you have to look at Davy Fitzgerald. He’s out there to be shot at but as the saying goes, hated, adored but never ignored. There will be eyeballs aware of Antrim hurling in 2025 that wouldn’t have had the first clue about it twelve months ago, and that is solely down to the Davy effect.
The Simone Biles award: This one goes to Michael Murphy. As the most successful footballer in Donegal’s history, captain of an All-Ireland winning team and for five Ulster titles, he walked away with nothing left to achieve. But as the bright lights began to twinkle and with the field still looking open, he couldn’t resist. It is perhaps premature to offer this award on account that he hasn’t actually done anything yet, but he will.
The Jhon Duran award: It probably should be the Stefan Campbell award given to Jhon Duran given the chronology but for sheer impact off the bench, the Lurgan man’s part in Armagh’s All-Ireland cannot be overstated. To my mind he was unlucky not to win an Allstar, let alone be left off the nominations list. He accepted his role and tore into it, culminating in his trademark burst that created the final’s only goal for Aaron McKay just moments after he’d come on.
The Oasis award: Goes to the GAA itself for their handling of ticket prices for the new season. Gifted an open goal with the interest that will be generated around the 2025 season by football’s new rules, they took the decision to cash in on it by announcing a blanket €5/£5 on U16s across the top two tiers in the football and hurling leagues. Then they generated a bit of guff about how it was a health and safety decision. Why not have a nominal 10p ticket then, given that it’s all paperless now and there’s no cost? It turned an easy win into a PR disaster.
The Erik ten Hag award: The award for the thing that was better over for everyone’s sake goes to Kildare footballers and the Glenn Ryan reign. It had started off well, and who could forget their league win over Dublin in Newbridge a few months in, but things tapered off and 2024 was a complete disaster. For a county that looked to be getting their act together, finishing bottom of Division Two without a single point and losing their first knockout Tailteann Cup game to Laois was ignominious. It was a pity for a management team stacked with legends of Kildare football to bow out on that.
The Katy Taylor-Amanda Serrano award: Given for having proven itself worthy of greater billing than to be relegated to understudy status, it is the Ulster Club hurling championship. For almost a decade it has consistently produced games of not just great excitement but quality as well. This year’s Slaughtneil-Cushendall game was the first time RTÉ had ever shown an Ulster Club hurling tie live. It generated such interest that Ulster Council acceded to TG4′s request to push the final to 5.15pm so they could show it live as the third game in a triple-header.
The Garrett Wilson award: Named in honour of Garrett Wilson’s incredible one-handed catch (New York Jets v Houston Texans, go and watch it), the summer’s best moment of fielding in GAA was Ciaran Kilkenny’s incredible fetch in the last minute of Dublin-Mayo. A point down, the ball hanging in the sky, it’s not Kilkenny you expect to see flying through the air like prime Darragh Ó Sé. They worked the equaliser off it but it was the catch itself that stands out in the memory.
The Arne Slot award: Goes to Louth manager Ger Brennan. He quietly stepped into the breach left by Mickey Harte’s left-field switch to Derry last summer. Harte and Gavin Devlin had brought Louth from Division Four to Two, done a sterling job and looked a hard act to follow. But Brennan slotted in seamlessly, built on their work and implemented changes that improved them again. Running Dublin to four points and reaching a first ever All-Ireland quarter-final, beating Cork to get there, was an incredible return on a first year.
The Messi With A Stick award: There can only be one winner here – Tony Kelly, for his incredible solo goal in the All-Ireland final. Giving anything the title of greatest ever is a big claim but if there’s been a better goal in an All-Ireland final, I haven’t seen it.
The Logan Roy award: Although they couldn’t be more different, this gong goes to Brian Fenton. Not for his actions but the manner of his exit from the show. You can almost hear Dessie Farrell at him like Roman. “You’re a monster and you’re gonna win, cos you just win.” Others from James McCarthy to Louise Ni Muircheartaigh stepped away but their careers seemed more filled out. Despite the rumours, nobody really thought Fenton was even on the aeroplane but his ten years of endless winning were enough to fulfil him. The great Brian Fenton, a past tense as a Gaelic footballer. That’ll take getting used to.
The Arthur Guinness award: We’re not actually sure how much actual Guinness was consumed this particular afternoon, but given that it was pre-ration and all the other awards are named after people, we didn’t have much choice. It’s a third award for the Armagh footballers, this time for their Monday spent in Lurgan after losing the Ulster final on penalties. They absorbed the blow, bonded over a few bruskies and while Donegal danced in delight, the Orchard men took a first step on their road to the ultimate glory.
The Drake v Kendrick Lamar award: The beef we didn’t know we needed until it existed was the individual battle between Kilkenny’s Eoin Cody and Clare corner-back Adam Hogan. Their lack of love in their exchanges in the All-Ireland semi-final seemed genuinely heartfelt. And it added so much to the game. Why does everyone have to like each other now? A bit of badness on the field was never any harm.
The Rodri award: Another one for a Galway footballer, this time the unfortunate Rob Finnerty. Even though he’d had a brilliant summer, the depth of his value to Galway remained completely understated until he went off injured ten minutes into the All-Ireland final. They were shapeless up front and struggled for attacking balance without him. Outside was the single biggest moment in this year’s decider.
The Susie Dent award: There weren’t many in the GAA’s dictionary corner that had ever heard of the word ‘sandbox’ before the FRC started tossing it into every second sentence. If you had to guess, you’d probably have hyphenated it at worst, maybe even gone with two words. Sand-box? Sand box? But no. Who knew it had nothing to do with sand as well? (It’s a computing term, in case you didn’t). It became the word of the autumn, and for that we can only credit Jim Gavin. Of all the credit he’s earned in the last few months, this surely means more than anything.
