THE COVETED SUNDAY GAME Man of the Match award for this year’s All-Ireland senior football final was awarded to Paul Mannion of Dublin. 

Mannion kicked five points for Dublin in today’s final – a third of Dublin’s points given they racked up 1-15 – and his fifth was the score which put Dublin ahead for the final time. 

The award was voted upon by RTE’s panel of Sunday Game pundits.

Mannion was nominated for the award alongside a couple of defenders, alongside his team-mate Mick Fitzsimons – who kept David Clifford to two points from play on the day he won a record ninth All-Ireland medal – and Kerry’s Tadhg Morley, who held Con O’Callaghan scoreless. 

This was Mannion’s seventh All-Ireland medal, and marks a stunning return to the Dublin panel having stepped away for a couple of years. 

“It was a tough couple of years for the team, I didn’t have first-hand experience of it obviously”, reflected Mannion on the Sunday Game having been announced as the winner. “It was probably more difficult watching on from the sidelines and not being in the headspace to be there. I wanted to come back in and contribute in any little way I could, I wish I could have contributed more earlier in the year. 

“We probably deserved some of the criticism we got earlier in the year, for not hitting the levels of performance we are known for, but in the last two or three games you’ve seen the best of us.”