The football year in review: Footballer of the year? Biggest disappointment? Our writers make their picks

Irish Times

2 days ago

Malachy Clerkin
Footballer of the year:
David Clifford.
Scored more than everyone else. Scored more from play than everyone else. Scored more goals than everyone else. Scored 0-7, 1-9 and 0-9 from the quarter-final on – and wasn't named Man of the Match in any of those games. Pleasingly, his overall tally from play came to 8-12-24 – or, if you like, 24-24-24.
And he did it all while being the one player every opposition made plans for, sent their best man-marker after and changed their own game to contain. A genuinely astonishing footballer.
Kerry's David Clifford scores a two-pointer despite Donegal's Brendan McCole. Photograph: Laszlo Geczo/Inpho
Best game:
Derry
's draw with
Galway
in the round robin game in Celtic Park. It finished 2-20 to 4-14 and never let up. Six goals, four two-pointers, countless hits and spills and crankiness all over the pitch. Derry finally showed who they can be, Galway hung in grimly right to the last drop and looked to have dug out the win with Matthew Tierney's 69th-minute goal. But Derry, with Conor Glass exceptional, got up the pitch and Conor Doherty's equaliser brought the house down.
Memorable moment:
Louth
's Leinster title. Ger Brennan's team had been coming but nobody was predicting anything other than a 15th Leinster title in a row for
Dublin
at the start of the year. But once
Meath
knocked them out, Louth took their chance. Played a bad first half but clung on through a hailstorm of goals, including the strike of the year from Craig Lennon. Sam Mulroy's second half was a display for the ages.
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Biggest disappointment:
The knock-out stages consisted of 11 games, only three of which ended with a margin smaller than six points. We thought we had a wide open
championship
but as the stakes got higher, so many of the games were decided long before the end. It all kind of fizzled out really.
Former Dublin manager and FRC chair Jim Gavin at Croke Prk ahead of the All-Ireland final. Photograph: Morgan Treacy/Inpho
In 2026 I would like to see:
The game keep evolving. The new rules aren't perfect by any means but what they've done is illustrate the need for a standing rules committee with the power to change something if it isn't working. If 2025 did anything, it should have cured the moaning of the why-can't-they-just-leave-the-game-alone crowd. Fat chance, probably.
Gordon Manning
Footballer of the year:
Is it a debate?
David Clifford
finished the year as championship top scorer with 8-62 all in, an average of 9.5 points per game. Second was Seán O'Shea on 1-50. Clifford hoisted his team-mates upon his shoulders and carried them to glory this year. The new rules have liberated his considerable talents.
Best game:
Donegal
's Ulster final win over
Armagh
was a gripping, couldn't-take-your-eyes off it battle. It was a game played with huge intensity, aggression, high skill level, plenty of physicality and drama. The sun was beaming and St Tiernach's Park felt like a claustrophobic powder-keg waiting to explode. And it did.
Michael Murphy with the Anglo-Celt Cup after Donegal's Ulster final win over Armagh. Photograph: Ben Brady/Inpho
Memorable moment:
Louth's first Leinster SFC success since 1957 sparked an outpouring of emotion rarely seen for provincial triumphs these days. The atmosphere in Croke Park was more in keeping with an All-Ireland final than Leinster final day. In terms of memorable moments it was closely followed by Meath's victory over Dublin. Who said the Leinster SFC was a lame duck?
Biggest disappointment:
The lack of space between the end of the league and the start of the championship encouraged teams to essentially pull the handbrake on their league campaigns a few weeks before the end of the competition. For what is apparently the second most important competition in the intercounty calendar, nobody seemed very motivated to win it.
In 2026 I would like to see:
A return to the traditional throw-in of two v two at the start of each half. The unnatural optics of two players standing on either sideline waiting for the ball to be tossed in before they can enter the pitch is completely unnecessary. The new rules have made such a positive impact, but the one v one throw-in is an example of needless meddling.
Denis Walsh
Footballer of the year:
In sport, numbers are a coarse expression of genius but sometimes they're handy.
David Clifford
was the top scorer in the championship by a clear 33 points; he was also the top scorer from play by 33 points, and he kicked the most two-pointers. In the final he racked up nine points, without even attempting a free. Astonishing.
Best game:
In its final edition the mid-championship round robin produced a blizzard of great matches, two of them involving Galway, but the hectic Cork-Kerry Munster semi-final in late April was a glorious portent of the season to come.
Louth fans in Hill 16 celebrate after the final whistle in the Leinster final against Meath. Photograph: Tom Maher/Inpho
Memorable moment:
Meath's sensational victory over Dublin revived a moribund Leinster championship and their mind-boggling victory over Kerry was just the shock therapy Kerry needed, as it happened. But Louth winning the Leinster final was the day of days in football's golden summer.
Biggest disappointment:
Games 97, 98 and 99 between the last four teams standing in a great championship were all one-sided. It was just a pity that nothing sparked in Croke Park over the last fortnight.
In 2026 I would like to see:
Further refinements of the new rules. Do we really need 12 players behind the ball? How soon before we can get the number down to 10? What's the plan for squashing the outbreaks of lateral handpassing?
Seán Moran
Footballer of the year:
Just before half-time,
David Clifford
's two-pointer encapsulated his consistent ability to defy the tightest marking and the acumen to kick scores, 8-62 in total. Like all great players, his scores cut deeply, messaging: he's here; today is not your day.
Best game:
Kerry 0-32 Armagh 1-21. The portal through which Kerry emerged as a transformed force. Trailing by five in the second half, they unleashed 15 minutes of dazzling football, which completely undid the champions in the quarter-final.
Donegal's Ciarán Moore scores the winning point against Mayo at Dr Hyde Park. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho
Memorable moment:
Ciarán Moore's 70th-minute gallop to kick the winning point against Mayo in Roscommon. It didn't advance Donegal in the slightest but killed the opposition's championship and tolled the bell on Kevin McStay's management with the usual unseemly consequences in the county.
Biggest disappointment:
Despite the positive impact of the FRC and some great contests, the business end proved terribly disappointing with one-way All-Ireland semi-finals, which were going to be redeemed by the resulting final. Instead, Donegal were handed a beating not suffered for 18 years.
In 2026 I would like to see:
Louth's somewhat forgotten – or at best, overlooked – breakthrough and Meath's progress to an All-Ireland semi-final, having beaten Dublin along the way, raised optimism for a competitive, well-attended Leinster championship. Let's hope it's not a false dawn.
Ian O'Riordan
Footballer of the year:
Just when you thought
David Clifford
couldn't possibly get any better. He came out this season leaner, hungrier, and meaner, his appetite for destruction in front of goal more insatiable than it has even been. After scoring 8-53 from eight games coming into Sunday's final, he added another 0-9 from play, including three two-pointers – and only a fantastic clearance off the line denied him a goal.
The smiling scene of him raising the Sam Maguire with his son Ógie, and his brother Paudie Clifford, was the perfect end to a perfect championship season.
Shane Walsh celebrates after kicking the winning score against Armagh at Breffni Park. Photograph: James Lawlor/Inpho
Best game:
A few contenders here, given the many smash hits of the football championship, but Galway's All-Ireland series round-robin game against All-Ireland champions Armagh at Breffni Park was one of the best in my book.
In the penultimate round of the so-called Group of Death, Galway came from eight points down at half-time to land a one-point win with the last kick of the game, a cool-as-you-like it free by Shane Walsh. Galway would later progress to the knock-out stages thanks to their draw with Derry, another cracking game of football, only that Saturday evening in Breffni was Galway at their fighting best.
Memorable moment:
Sometimes you get a different view of a game when attending as a spectator, not a reporter, but either way Kerry's All-Ireland quarter-final win over Armagh was a sight to behold. Sitting in the lower Hogan Stand between a mixture of Kerry and Armagh supporters, that 15-minute spell in the second half when Kerry scored 14 unanswered points was utterly breathtaking. One point by David Clifford, after running rings around the Armagh defence, was a kind of magic.
Biggest disappointment:
We know there will be one less round in the All-Ireland series next year which will free up another weekend to allow a little more breathing space at the business end of the championship. We also know there's no going back to September All-Ireland finals, or even early August – not for the time being anyway – but there's still an uneasy sense the championship has been raced through at an unnecessarily fast pace.
In 2026 I would like to see:
Louth's first Leinster football title since 1957 injected some much-needed interest and excitement into the province, particularly after Dublin's exit at the hands of Meath. Ulster and Connacht continue with their competitive element, while the Munster football championship is lacking it, despite Cork's brave effort this year. It's hard to see how that will change next year, but maybe Jim Gavin might have some thoughts on the structure of it?