The days of the dual player are going, going…
We still have a few players fighting the hard cause. There’s Keith Higgins up in Mayo. Fergal Boland alongside him. Chrissy McKaigue is winning Nicky Rackards with Derry.
Dual players are becoming fewer and further between due to the intense commitment required in a modern day GAA panel. Players are being forced to choose one code from the other in order to survive.
Here’s the best of the current GAA players who have chosen to play football over hurling, and are still currently involved.
They’re not dual players.
9. Diarmuid Connolly (St. Vincent’s, Dublin)
Loads of Dubs will tell you he’s a better hurler than he is a footballer. We’re not too sure about that but his displays for St. Vincent’s show that Pat Gilroy certainly wouldn’t mind having him.
8. Ciaran Kilkenny (Castleknock, Dublin)
Kilkenny was an extremely promising minor for Dublin and was very unlucky to lose out in the final in 2011.
Impressed at times for the St. Pat’s Drumcondra Fitzgibbon hurling team. His physicality is missed in their hurling set-up.
7. Ciarán Lyng (St. Martin’s, Wexford)
Some lads have it all. Travelled across the water as a youngster for football trials with Derby and a host of other clubs. He’s been a nippy corner forward on the Wexford football team for some time now.
What many outside of Wexford may not know – he’s one of the best club hurlers in the county. Scored 1-2 in St. Martin’s county final triumph over Oulart-the-Ballagh this year and played a pivotal role in their whole campaign.
What Davy Fitzgerald would do to have him.
6. Mark Schutte (Cuala, Dublin)
Joined the long list of Dublin hurlers to have walked out for the footballers. Unlike the others, Schutte did it for a place on the bench.
A serious forward in his own right. Schutte’s speed, physicality and scoring threat are a huge loss to the county’s hurlers.
4. Aidan Walsh (Kanturk, Cork)
Walsh has chopped and changed between the Rebel hurlers and Rebel footballers over the last few years. For now, though, like Cadogan he’s committing to Cork solely as a footballer.
Hurling folk in Cork will remember that August night in 2011 when he gave one of the finest hurling displays in recent memory in the Munster under-21 final against Limerick. It might be a bittersweet one, because they know he’d make such a difference to them if he left the football behind.
The Kanturk colossus scored eight points from play that night. He plucked truly ludicrous high balls from the sky.
Won a Munster intermediate hurling with Kanturk at the weekend. Even more of a reason for him to return.
3. Cormac Costello (Whitehall-Colmcille, Dublin)
Was a man-of-the-match in the 2012 hurling and football All-Ireland minor finals. One of the only players to have ever done so? Certainly.
He scored 4-2 in the semi-final of that year’s hurling competition against Waterford and 1-2 against Tipperary in the drawn final.
As so often happens in Dublin, he has chosen to play football at senior level.
2. Colin O’Riordan (Killea, Tipperary)
The greatest underage sensation the Premier County has seen in quite a while. O’Riordan pulled on the blue and gold as a fifteen-year-old in both minor hurling and football.
And he did the same at under-21 level for three years.
He graced the hurling fields of Tipperary with a ridiculous ability to catch a high ball under all kinds of pressure. Had a spell as part of the Tipperary senior hurling panel, but was soon pried away by the footballers.
His displays in football have earned him a move to the AFL.
The one that got away from the Tipperary hurlers.
1. Gary Brennan (Ballyea, Clare)
Tall, athletic, powerful, fast, strong, skilful. Gary Brennan was one of Ballyea’s best players in their march to the 2016 All-Ireland club final.
Playing at half forward, the not so gentle giant was a beast in the air. He was an animal on the run. Well able to finish, too.
Such passion and drive for that in one February weekend he travelled over 510 km to play for the Clare footballers in a league game in Derry the day after his club won the All-Ireland semi-final in Thurles.
I wrote this about Gary Brennan because he reminds me of Anthony Tohill and I couldn't believe he's 27 https://t.co/uvxQpnyLrl #GAA #Clare
— Conán Doherty (@ConanDoherty) July 23, 2016
That’s what you want. That’s what you need.
Unfortunately for the Banner hurlers, this man is a footballer on the inter-county scene.
1. Con O’Callaghan (Cuala, Dublin)
O’Callaghan is, debatably, one of the best hurlers in Dublin. His swashbuckling form with Cuala in this year’s club Championship is highlighting that.
His influence hasn’t yet been curtailed in Dublin or in Leinster. He has scored 5-8 from play in the Dalkey side’s run to their fourth Leinster final in a row.
He’s done it all with pure raw explosiveness. He’s a cold-blooded killer up top. For the first five balls he got against St. Martin’s in last Sunday’s Leinster semi-final, he turned and took on his man.
He also managed to score 3 points from play in just 69 seconds of hurling.
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