Donnellan had one outstanding year in 98 and was never as good after that. His career was shorter than it should have been. A brilliant player, but he was surrounded by players of real class. Padraic Joyce, Paul Clancy, Kevin Walsh, Sean De Paor, and the best of the lot, Ja Fallon, were all outstanding footballers.

McGeeney is the most overrated footballer in the history of the GAA, in addition to being the dirtiest. A fine athlete, but he wouldn't be in the same league as Karl Lacey skill wise.

The general publics assessment of players worth , and from that the medias view , is always skewed by the glamour of scoring . The only people whose view I respect completely are the players who play against the "stars" . As I know quite a few of the players who played back in the sixties , seventies , eighties , nineties , and up to about 2005 I find there is seldom the same assessment coming from the players as from the general view . The players views inevitably come from team talks ,conversations post match , post celebratory dinners etc , get togethers , and travelling with them in cars or buses . Strip out any emotion and analyse .

As for the TV pundits etc , I find most of them being selective when discussing the ability of players involved in the matches they are commenting on . No ex player ( and I can think of a few ) as a pundit will praise ( or mention ) a player who had them in his pocket for a match . If someone outplays you for 70 minutes , he is better than you are , and if you are a pundit , maybe its the wrong man in the seat .

I judge defenders often by the game the man they are marking has had . Too often the forward concerned gets a bye ball comment wise in post match analysis , when the fact is he has been outplayed by his respective defender . In respect of paddletoes comment that the forwards are far better players than defenders I find that much too sweeping a statement . Lots of forwards I have seen could not play in defence , so how could that make them automatically better than a good defender who possibly could play well as a forward .

When Down won in 1991 , two of their forwards were converted defenders , best positions left half back and centre full back  , both starred in that match , puts  paddletoes assertion in the dock . The really good players like Jacko could play any position on the field , and often did through their careers . Anthony Tohill was a brilliant full back , midfielder , and full forward  , also  half forward .  All teams need people who can score , sometimes that becomes the priority and the players natural talent / ability /playing position gets sacrificed for team benefit.

I asked a friend of mine one time who was the best defender he had played against ( regularly , once off is not a good statistical sample) . The player he nominated while a household name was not generally recognised as capable of marking this forward selected on the Team of the Century .

Hard for defenders to be recognised for the unseen hard work , the covering off  ,plus ability to anticipate where the danger is and plug it . In that respect I recall the New Zealanders praising Mike Gibson as the best footballer they ever saw .  Their reason was that he thwarted 90% of their attacks nearly before they started them .  Vision .

Not easy to say they would not hold a candle to your county man kavvie, but without question any list of the best forwards of the past 30 years must include him. A brilliant footballer and the fact that he stuck out a mile in the big games with Kerry when all those other marquee forwards were on the pitch says everything about him.

That comment about Canavan playing with super players was wildly inaccurate. He was 60% the player in 2003 that he was in his prime. He won allstars in 94-96 with a shell of a team around him. I think only Dooher and Chris Lawn remained on the team in 2003. He really should have received 5 allstars rather than 6 however as there is no way he should have got the award ahead of McGuigan in 2005.

The Gooch is among the best I have ever seen over a 60 year period . McGuigan ( Frank ) would possibly outrank Canavan if its confined to Tyrone worthies .

Mc Guigan was a great player. I remember watching him play his first game when he came back from america and seeing the keeper a bit off his line passed the ball over him into the net from thirty yards. But no one will ever convince me that Canavan was the greatest player to ever play gaelic football. I think he won 3 consecutive all ireland u21 titles with an average Tyrone team.

I would say if he had been on one of the better teams when in his prime he could have taken that side to about 5 senior all irelands in a row. You should not just look at Canavans scoring records which were in themselves phenomenal but also how many other scores he set up every time he got the ball. His mere presence on the field created so much space for other forwards even when he did not have the ball.

Dont want to get into a Canavan debate , Paddletoe .  Brilliant player , often on a not great team ( including St Marys ). But to be the greatest player of all time you would have to do more than score . If a ball had been thrown in 10 times between him and Jacko or him and Anthony Tohill , how many times would he have got clean possession ? Frank would have broken even .

To be the greatest player of all time you would have to be able to master all the skills , and that includes high fielding against taller players . One fairly well known and well respected county fooballer who is one of the ( controversial )pundits we see regularly admits he never jumped for a ball in his  county life .

Reference defenders versus attackers , maybe your criteria for positioning players in Tyrone is different from ours in Down . Personally when I was picking a team the full back and the centre half were the key , invariably my best defenders occupied those 2 spots , and invariably no team scored many goals against us , you cant score goals from the sideline . But even poor enough forwards could score goals against a team with crap central defenders . Murphys goal on Sunday was a prime example of the wrong guy playing full back against him .

We have traditionally always had a lot of good footballers in Down , our record stands to that . We still have a lot of good footballers in our current county set up , most of them are probably starring at midfield for their club teams ( an old Dublin failing in the pick  ) , but none of these "good footballers" can defend properly . Not like the really good defenders we had in the past ( most of whom would have made decent forwards if they had been needed ).  Already quoted re Carr and Mason in  a previous post in that regard .  Better defenders than forwards arguably  , but they both starred as forwards in a winning All-Ireland season . The other 4 forwards never played anywhere but forward in their playing careers , Greg Blaney could have played anywhere  , but the other 3 could not  , they viewed themselves as scoring machines . And did it successfully .

Ciaran MacDonald the best I have seen.

One of the better threads on the Irish Forum.

Kelly,

Were you at the Kerry/Down All-Ireland in 1968 ? I went to the game with my father as a 9yr old. It was the first AI final that I attended. I have some fond memories of the day.

Those were the days when kids didn't need tickets and you could be lifted over the turnstile. I was in awe of the huge concrete maze as we made our way up the stairwell at the back of the old Hogan Stand. When we got to the top I asked my dad who he wanted to win. Down, came the reply. I asked him, Why ? Because they're the underdog. Cue me, What's an Underdog ? After explaining it to me, he bought me a Down flag.

When we emerged into the stand I couldn't believe how huge the stadium was and I took a vacant seat close to my father. Fortunately, I was able to remain in an unclaimed seat throughout the game. Sean O' Neill's lucky early goal set the tone for the match. However, my most vivid memory of the day was the rendition of "The Star of the Co Down", on and off the pitch, at half time. If I had hairs on the back of my neck, they were standing then. Another remarkable memory was the Down colours. Black togs !! I thought, up to then, that all GAA teams wore white togs.

The flag and my father are long gone but the good memories remain. UP DOWN !

kavvie, I was there too. My father had a 10 yr ticket for the Hogan Stand and each year my older brother and I would get the choice between the hurling or football final (those were the days !). The little redhead must have been one of the best free-takers in the history of the game.

many in mayo dissapointed that mcdonald was not brought back into the mayo panel even at 37 would have made a massive difference in the last 20 minutes..if anyones around the west in the weekend following next hel be playing in the senior semi final for crossmolina against ballintubber will be an interesting watch...he was never afraid of losing the ball and would always go for the pass if it was on unlike many of his contempories who would hold possession at all costs

First of all thanks for all the different opinions on this thread. It always makes for a more balanced debate. Some great players have been mentioned. Glad someone mentioned Ciaran Mc Donald. A brilliant player to watch. He seemed to always have so much time and space on the ball and was like the michel platini of gaelic football the way he could influence a game from around the middle of the field. The best player i have ever seen passing the ball over long distances with both the inside and outside of his feet.

Kelly once again we shall agree to disagree. I dont think you neeed to be the master of all skills to be considered the greatest. You can be so good in some skills that others are secondary. You posed a question how many times Canavan would win a ball if it was thrown in between him and Jacko. I am not sure what the relevance of that question is, unless Canavan was lining out at midfield and trying to win the throw in. The point is that great forward players like Canavan dont get into positions where they need to fight for 50-50 balls. They make space to get the ball before it gets that far. Balls are not played in high to players like Canavan so high fielding is not important. High feilding is not as important as skill, pace,,vision and pace with most of the great forwards. Canavan had also the heart of a terrier. He was definately not a diver in reply to another post. Remember how he squared up to the aussies in the compromise rules.

In reply to Cupwinkcook, Joe Mc Nally was not the player i was thinking about but i believe you may be right about Joe Mc Nally too. The player i was thinking about was Ger Houlihan from Armagh.

Yes reb , been at  all 6 Down All-Ireland final appearances , the first 5 of which we won as you all know . The first 2 were very special , laying down a marker , dangerous crowds though , over 90,000 I suspect at each match , felt like that anyway .  1968 was a win , but had not the feel of the matches in 61 and 62 , although some of the players were obviously on the 2 previous winning teams .  But the 61 and 62 teams would have beaten the 1968 team fairly easily I think .

The 1991 win was also special as it came after a fairly long period relatively in the doldrums , despite some very good players appearing in that 23 year period . And 1991 was a very special year for football , given the epics between Dublin and Meath ,  both of them very good teams  , full of good tried and trusted players . We won again in 1994 , but the performance was not at  the 91 level either in the way we played or the opposition , just as well as we played with 14 fit men  only from the start . The team started downwards after the match against Derry  , who would have hacked up in the All-Ireland had they got the better of us that year in Derry . They were better than us in 94 but we got lucky that day and a couple of players popped up  for us with no prior evidence of that level of ability in the white heat of battle . But that performance was not repeated again , not needed luckily .

Current squad can all play football , if they have the ball , but they cant stop the opposition getting the ball and waltzing though one of the poorest defences in football . Hence some of the paddletoe debate re footballers , forwards and defenders .

That was one thing about the old days  , no diving .  If you got tripped or fouled or emptied you got up as quick as possible to let the opposition know they could not hurt or intimidate you .

I blame the managers  , think the players are instructed to "make the most " out of fouls .  Too much soccer influence possibly , lots of them should be in the Olympics .

Reckon its one place where Lombardi and I would part on that viewpoint .  I love sport for the "buckle " element and the way sport regenerates the psyche .  Winning is'nt everything , unless its in style . Style means treating your opponent with as much respect as you expect yourself .

To win , and to win in style is magnificent .  Victory where there is any element of cheating or manipulation of officialdom etc is shoddy . Looking at yourself in the mirror the next morning feeling there was anything  dubious about a victory must be tricky . Unless its just pure luck , the dubious element , then you take it .

One of the reasons I loved  Adam Gilchrist ( apart from his dynamic batting ) was that he always walked when he knew he was out . Comment does not apply to a lot of other cricketers these days , one of the downsides of professionalism .  Guess that when success means bread or none on the table , peoples outlooks change . Mores the pity that it has to be like that .

Dont think so Freddie .  Batsmen nearly always know .

As wicketkeeper also he often adjudicated on his sides appeals if he thought the appeal was invalid . Guess Adam could always look himself square in the face in the morning mirror .