Meath mob-handed again as 45 Ladies football All-Star nominations announced

Niall McIntyre

All-Ireland champs Meath are mob-handed with 13 of the 45 nominees for the 2022 TG4 Ladies Football All Star awards.

The Royal County won a second successive TG4 All-Ireland Senior title on July 31, when they defeated Kerry, to go with the Lidl National League they’d won earlier in the year.

Runners-up Kerry are next best, with 11 nominations after a campaign that also saw the Kingdom contest a TG4 Munster Senior Final, while they were also crowned Lidl National League Division 2 champions.

Donegal, who contested the Lidl National League Division 1 Final before reaching the last four of the All-Ireland series, have six players up, while there five nominees from Mayo, who also contested a TG4 All-Ireland Senior Championship semi-final.

There are four nominations for TG4 Ulster Senior champions Armagh, who were runners-up in the Lidl National League Division 2 Final, while Dublin and Cork earn two nominations each.

The list is completed by a nomination each for TG4 Connacht Senior champions Galway and Laois, who landed the TG4 All-Ireland Intermediate title in 2022.

Ten players from the 2021 TG4 All Star team are nominated for awards again, including eight Meath stars who were honoured last year.

Monica McGuirk, a two-time recipient, is joined on that list by fellow 2021 TG4 All Star winners Mary Kate Lynch, Aoibhín Cleary, Emma Troy, Máire O’Shaughnessy, Emma Duggan, Vikki Wall, the 2021 TG4 Senior Players’ Player of the Year, and Niamh O’Sullivan, who was player of the match in the 2022 TG4 All-Ireland Senior Final.

The other Meath nominees are team captain Shauna Ennis, Aoibheann Leahy, Orlagh Lally, Kelsey Nesbitt and Stacey Grimes. Katie Newe and Megan Thynne, who both started their final win over Kerry, are the two absentees from the list.

The list is completed by Laois attacker Mo Nerney, the Intermediate Championship nominee and winner of the ZuCar Golden Boot award as top scorer in the 2022 TG4 All-Ireland Championships.

The 2022 TG4 All Star team will be announced at a gala banquet at The Bonnington Dublin Hotel on Saturday, November 19.

The 2022 TG4 Junior, Intermediate and Senior Players’ Player of the Year award winners will also be announced on the night, while the 2022 inductee into the Ladies Gaelic Football Association (LGFA) Hall of Fame will also be acknowledged.

2022 TG4 All Star nominees:

Goalkeepers

Anna Carr – Armagh

Ciara Butler – Kerry

Monica McGuirk – Meath

Full Back Line

Róisín Phelan – Cork

Evelyn McGinley – Donegal

Tanya Kennedy – Donegal

Leah Caffrey – Dublin

Eilís Lynch – Kerry

Kayleigh Cronin – Kerry