Is this the Greatest Football Team of the 21st Century?
It's the most wonderful time of the year. For the most part.
Every silver lining has a cloud, and in this (admittedly charmed) business of ours, that cloud sometimes comes in the form of the annual 'throw out your ideas for a Christmas feature’ request from the sports editor.
Every December, you hope he’ll forget. Alas, he does not.
Glutton for punishment that we are, we decided to eschew a standard, safe ‘keep it tight at the back’ crowd-pleaser. And cause a row instead.
So here we go, with our attempt to select the Greatest Gaelic Football Team of the 21st Century.
This idea had its origins in a debate which we became embroiled in during a post-golf dinner earlier this year where two Meathmen, two Dubs and a Limerickman attempted to pick this fictitious team.
Our efforts were abandoned before we’d reached the half-back line. Things were said that can never be taken back. However, we felt this was a task with some merit and therefore warranted another crack. Sober.
We’ve had 26 seasons of the All-Ireland senior football championship this century.
The All-Ireland titles breakdown in that time is as follows: Dublin have won nine; Kerry have added eight to remain the all-time ‘winningest’ (we’re hopeful that's the only Americanism we resort to herewith but, at this early remove, we can’t promise anything) football county; all four of Tyrone’s Sam Maguire wins have come in this period.
The Red Hands’ Ulster rivals Armagh have also won their only two All-Irelands since the 2000s began. Added to that, there have been single titles for Galway, Cork and Donegal.
The turn of the century coincided with the second halves of some historic inter-county careers.
Peter Canavan finally got his Tyrone side over the line in 2003. And again in 2005.
Pádraic Joyce led Galway to a pair of All-Ireland titles in 1998 and 2001 while his Tribesmen were also beaten finalists in 2000.
The great Seamus Moynihan was winning captain and Man of the Match in the first All-Ireland final of the 21st Century when his Kerry team saw off Joyce's Galway and the versatile defender would cap off a wonderful season by being named Footballer of the Year.
Derry legend Anthony Tohill certainly played his best football in the 1990s – including that 1993 All-Ireland title – but he had enough left in the tank to drive his county to a league title and Ulster final in 2000 while collecting the last of his four All Stars.
Ciarán Whelan did as much as any Dub to try end the Boys in Blues’ Sam Maguire famine during the 2010s.
In the end, the colossal midfielder would become the ultimate ‘inbetweener’, his fine inter-county career falling imperfectly between Dublin’s standalone triumphs of 1995 and 2011.
It’s probably only fair if we endeavour to explain the rationale behind some of the decisions we made when selecting our Team of the Century.
What makes a player great?
If you start off with a mix of skill, talent, ability and toughness, you’re in good shape from the get-go.
In this ultimate Gaelic football side, we only have room for team players.
We’ve also placed an emphasis on longevity, consistency, commitment and ultimate success. The most important ability being availability and all that.
Here's the hard part.
We figured there were just three ‘non-negotiable’ players in this selection.
Three that just had to be in your team, love 'em or hate 'em. All 12 remaining positions were up for debate.
And every position posed an argument. We had to find a way to split them.
That’s where ‘success’ came into it. Winning matters.
We have placed a premium on players who delivered on the biggest of days. Those warriors who dragged their team to the steps of the Hogan Stand.
All 15 of our chosen side won All-Ireland titles during the last 26 years.
While we're crunching the numbers, the selection below which we eventually settled on have won 68 All-Irelands between them, all but one collected since the year 2000 [double spoiler alert: Seamus Moynihan's 1997 crown is the only 20th Century Sam Maguire win - unless we include Tomás Ó Sé as an unused sub that day, in which case the final total may be 69].
Many who didn’t ultimately win a Celtic Cross were very seriously considered.
But, as we said, we have to split 'em somehow. Added to that, in the interests of full disclosure, we did spend quite a while at one point writing about the 'Unbeatable' Dubs of the 2010s so some advance warning, a right few of those lads have made the cut!
Now, if you haven’t already hopped the phone off the wall or flung your laptop out the window, please keep reading while we explain…
Goalkeeper: 1. Stephen Cluxton (Dublin)
The first name on the teamsheet is one of the three ‘non negotiables’ mentioned above.
We could extend the timeframe for this make-believe team to include the previous century as well as this one and our selection between the posts would still be Stephen Cluxton.
Not only did Cluxton alter how his own position would be played forever, he changed the whole game in the meantime. Nine All-Ireland titles, a handful of All-Stars.
No man has made more Championship appearances than the 2019 Footballer of the Year. Quite simply, one of the most important players the game has ever seen.
Honourable mention: Niall Morgan (Tyrone), Rory Beggan (Monaghan), Diarmuid Murphy (Kerry).
Full-back line: 2. Marc Ó Sé (Kerry), 3. Seamus Moynihan (Kerry), 4. Neil McGee (Donegal)
At right corner-back, Marc Ó Sé won five All-Ireland titles and was the 2007 Footballer of the Year.
Alongside his older brother Tomás (more on him very shortly), Ó Sé made 88 championship appearances and is one of eight players from this selection who also made the RTÉ 'Football All-Stars of the Sunday Game Era' back in 2020.
"Don't forget Moynihan," a pal from the West warned when we informed him of our intentions to indulge in this 'Greatest 21st Century 15' folly. Forget Moynihan? This Dub – and many other non-Kerrymen – only wish we could!
There are four players on our not-quite-non-negotiable-but-very-bloody-close list (we need a better name for it, yes) and Seamus Moynihan is their ringleader.
The other corner-back position goes to Donegal's Neil McGee.
As uncompromising as it gets on a Donegal side that peaked around the start of the 2010s, culminating in only their second All-Ireland title in 2012.
Played full-back in the 2014 All-Ireland semi-final upset of Jim Gavin's soon-to-be-unbeatable Dubs - arguably the most influential game of football of this time period. Magee won All-Star awards in 2011, '12 and '14.
Honourable mention: Keith Higgins (Mayo), Michael Fitzsimons (Dublin), Jonny Cooper (Dublin), Mike McCarthy (Kerry).
Half-back line: 5. James McCarthy (Dublin), 6. Kieran McGeeney (Armagh), 7. Tomás Ó Sé (Kerry)
Three men have won nine All-Ireland titles – and two of them have made our Greatest Team of the 21st Century.
James McCarthy was the ultimate modern day Gaelic footballer. Physicality, skill, pace, ball-carrying, commitment and the ability to play at his peak when the pressure was at its highest.
A crucial contributor to all nine of Dublin's Sam Maguire successes during this period. Alongside Moynihan in that nearly-non-negotiable (that’s a better name, actually) bracket.
There may have been 'better’ Dublin footballers than James McCarthy. But none were greater.
To anchor our defence, we'll hand the reins to the brickwall that is Kieran McGeeney.
The beating heart of Armagh's 2002 All-Ireland champions and - much as it shouldn't matter - we couldn't help but give him bonus points for also being the man in charge when the Orchard County made it back to the promised land in 2024.
On the other wing, it would be hard to ignore the claims of Kerry great Tomás Ó Sé.
Ended his days in the green and gold with 10 Munster titles, five (six?) All-Irelands, three National Leagues and five All Stars.
Even had the good sense to get out of Dodge by 2013 just as Jim Gavin & Co were ramping things up. Ó Sé was, quite simply, as good a half-back as our game has ever seen.
Honourable mention: Lee Keegan (Mayo), Jack McCaffrey (Dublin), Conor Gormley (Tyrone).
Midfield: 8. Brian Fenton (Dublin), 9. Seán Cavanagh (Tyrone)
Raheny midfielder Brian Fenton was ‘non-negotiable’ number two for our 15.
Again, like his county team-mate Cluxton, we could make the case for including Fenton in an all-time Gaelic Football Greatest Starting 15.
Having made his debut in 2015, Fenton did not lose a Championship game until the 2021 All-Ireland semi-final defeat to Mayo. A two-time Footballer of the Year (one of only three players to win it more than once since the award's inception in 1995), Fenton never lost a provincial championship game.
Have we ever seen a better number eight than the seven-time All-Ireland winner? Other than Kingdom immortal Jack O’Shea, who else is realistically in that conversation?
JackO might not have played in the 21st century, but Tyrone great Seán Cavanagh certainly did - and he was there for three All-Ireland titles in the noughties (2003, 2005 and 2008).
Cavanagh was a member of six Ulster-winning sides and garnered five All-Star awards while he was also named the 2008 Footballer of the Year, selected ahead of fellow nominees Colm Cooper and his Tyrone team-mate Brian Dooher.
We'll take Fenton and Cavanagh in midfield against whomever you've got...
Honourable mention: Darragh Ó Sé (Kerry), Conor Glass (Derry), Ciarán Whelan (Dublin), David Moran (Kerry).
Half-foward line: 10. Ciarán Kilkenny (Dublin), 11. Colm Cooper (Kerry), 12. Michael Murphy (Donegal)
Suiting up in the number 10 jersey, Ciarán Kilkenny's inter-county career has been a study in sustained excellence.
Ear-marked as something of a prodigal son from a very young age with Dublin underage teams, the Castleknock forward delivered on all of that promise - and then some.
A brief dalliance with Australian Rules thankfully - from a Dublin fan's point of view - didn't rob his county of one of the key components of the Boys in Blues' most dominant era.
The straw that stirred the drink. Jim Gavin's unflappable on-field general.
Elsewhere, we once described Kingdom sorceror Colm 'Gooch' Cooper as "football's great jazz artist - the performer who never played the same note twice", a line which went down well at the time.
Just wish we could remember who we nicked it from. Cooper provoked the most confusing emotion in an opposing football fan.
Much as you wanted to see him in possession to marvel at his genius, you also knew certain death was imminent when that ball came his way. A footballing unicorn. We'll never see another Gooch.
We round out our half-forward line with Donegal's favourite son, Michael Murphy.
The Glenswilly forward captained his county to only their second ever All-Ireland title at the age of just 23 in 2012. A mark of the esteem he was held in at such a young age by his then (and now again) manager Jim McGuinness and his county team-mates.
Returned from retirement this past season to earn his fourth All-Star award and a Footballer of the Year nomination.
Honourable mention: Diarmuid Connolly (Dublin), Brian Dooher (Tyrone), Paul Flynn (Dublin), Declan O'Sullivan (Kerry), Alan Brogan (Dublin), Ciarán McDonald (Mayo), Pádraic Joyce (Galway).
Full-forward line: 13. David Clifford (Kerry), 14. Con O'Callaghan (Dublin), 15. Peter Canavan (Tyrone)
The final member of our trio of non-negotiables. Like Cluxton and Fenton, Kingdom wizard David Clifford is a great shout to be included in a GOAT team conversation.
Served notice of the sheer misery he would inevitably inflict on senior defences up and down the country when he bagged 4-04 in Kerry's 2017 All-Ireland minor final destruction of Derry.
Hasn't really stopped scoring since, the boy. Two All-Ireland titles to his name, three of the last four Footballer of the Year awards. And he only turns 27 at the end of next month…
We really have been spoiled for choice with forwards when compiling this fantasy 15.
The fact we could only briefly consider star names like the Brogans, Stephen O'Neill, Brian Dooher, Declan O'Sullivan, Shane Walsh, Darran O'Sullivan, Brian Howard and Conor McManus confirms the sheer breadth of attacking talent we've had the good fortune to watch this past quarter century.
But two of the three names in our full-forward unit were relatively easy picked.
Clifford, of course, and Dublin's Con O'Callaghan. If Clifford has been the standout forward of the last decade, O'Callaghan hasn't been too far behind.
The Cuala youngster had been a rumoured phenomenon on Hill16 a couple of years before Jim Gavin finally revealed him - slowly at first - in 2016.
By the end of the following season, O'Callaghan would win the first of three All Stars in the next four years. The six-time All-Ireland champion turns 30 in April.
The 15th and final jersey in our make-believe team goes to Tyrone's most beloved, Peter Canavan.
So close to the promised land in 1995 when he played Dublin on his own. He would finish his illustrious career with two belated All-Ireland titles when Mickey Harte's men finally broke through in the noughties.
Goals, points, individual brilliance, passing, free-taking, a necessary mean streak - the Errigal Ciarán schemer had the lot. Canavan was the inaugural Footballer of the Year in 1995. He won the last of his six All Stars in 2005 - 11 years after his first in 1994.
And if all that wasn't enough, he managed to pass the whole package on to son Darragh - one of the sharpest marksmen in the country.
Honourable mention: Bernard Brogan (Dublin), Steven McDonnell (Armagh), Declan Browne (Tipperary), Mattie Forde (Wexford), Stephen O'Neill (Tyrone), Andy Moran (Mayo), Dean Rock (Dublin), Conor McManus (Monaghan).
Alternate 15: 1. Niall Morgan; 2. Keith Higgins, 3. Michael Fitzsimons, 4. Mike McCarthy; 5. Lee Keegan, 6. Colm Boyle, 7. Jack McCaffrey; 8. Ciarán Whelan, 9. Conor Glass; 10. Diarmuid Connolly, 11. Pádraic Joyce, 12. Brian Dooher; 13. Bernard Brogan, 14. Steven McDonnell, 15. Conor McManus.
