DUBLIN’S STEPHEN CLUXTON and Tipperary’s Seamus Callanan have been announced as the PwC GAA-GPA Player of the Year award winners for 2019.
The All-Ireland winning captains were honoured tonight at the Convention Centre in Dublin at this year’s awards ceremony.
Cluxton and Callanan both win the respective awards for the first time. Dublin pair Con O’Callaghan and Jack McCaffrey were the other football nominees while Kilkenny’s TJ Reid and Cork’s Patrick Horgan were also on the hurling shortlist.
Dublin goalkeeper Cluxton also claimed his sixth football All-Star tonight while Callanan is now a four-time hurling All-Star.
Cluxton is the second Dublin player in a row to be recognised with six players in all from the capital side winning it this decade after the feats of Bernard and Alan Brogan, Michael Darragh MacAuley, Jack McCaffrey and Brian Fenton.
Callanan – who was nominated previously in 2014, 2015 and 2016 – is the first Tipperary player since Lar Corbett in 2010 to be honoured.
It’s the first time that both of the victorious captains have won the leading individual honour in the same year, Tipperary’s Tommy Dunne the last hurling captain to be crowned in 2001 with Armagh’s Kieran McGeeney recognised back in 2002.
It’s Rugby World Cup final week! On the latest episode of The42 Rugby Weekly, Murray Kinsella joins Gavan Casey and Sean Farrell to preview Saturday’s showdown between England and South Africa.
Would love to see him in a Director of Hurling type role. His philosophy on the game and the type of hurling he preaches is exactly where the game needs to be moving.
Nice touch from the Tipp County Board in the way they thanked their man, Cork CB please take note for future statements
Found O’Shea and his players to be very humble in their defeat, the spread was 5 or 6 points. Would be a great for a weaker county if they could snap him up, Laois or Offaly springs to mind.
Laois already have one of the best managers in the game. They might not have the players but that ain’t the manager’s fault.
Laois have the players……but Laois style of play is extremely bad and serious.
Is quite a statement, don’t normally see these things go so ‘passionate’. He did seem to come across in interviews that he was thinking deeper about how he wanted things to be played. In terms of trophies he won’t go down as ‘an all time great’ manager, but if you believe the statement the foundations for success are built, he might get more praise if the trophies start to flow
2 all Ireland’s we won in 14 years! bad tour around for a talented squad
Séamus Callanan’s post-match reaction last Sunday suggesting Tipp’s players would ‘die on the field’ for O’Shea.
Callanan had explained how the NUIG Professor was much more than just a hurling manager to the group.