Annual All Star row worth the admission

On Gaelic Games: The All Stars: glittering, gala event and festive piñata. In prospect, the selections stir much debate as the year pulls into quieter sidings, and the reaction fills the island with noises.

Arguments fall into two categories: certain individual awards and the method of selection. It's fairly repetitive, but that's part of the scheme's attraction. Consensus selections would be dull and don't happen because there's no such thing as a consensus when it comes to the All Stars.

I was part of the selection process last week - for the first time in six years - and was interested in how the qualifiers would affect the task of choosing 15 footballers. In theory, the modern championship format should facilitate players from counties other than those who are in the running for All-Irelands, but that hasn't been the experience this year.

There has been a lot of negative comment about the fact that the range of counties honoured was the smallest ever, with the spoils divided among just three, Armagh, Kerry and Tyrone.

It's hard to be sure whether this is a reflection of what happens when three counties dominate an extended championship to the extent that was the case this year - or if the 2005 championship was unusual.

My view is that this was not a typical year, certainly not by reference to what we have seen in the years since the qualifiers were introduced.

For the first time in those five years there was no surprise result at the sharp end of the championship (Kerry were favourites for the final, but not to the extent that their eclipse couldn't have been foreseen), with no team in the mould of Fermanagh, Sligo or Westmeath to shake fancied opposition and make significant use of the opportunities under the new system.

It's hard to remember a season in recent years when the ante-post favourites delivered so faithfully on their rating. There were fluctuations in form, but all three had satisfactory League campaigns - Armagh more than that, Tyrone despite a disappointing defeat by Wexford and Kerry, although they missed by a fraction of scoring average a place in the play-offs - before making varying impressions in the early championship.

By the time of the All-Ireland semi-finals these three counties had copper-fastened their status. Cork, nominally the fourth county in a three-horse race, crashed in the last four, whereas Armagh and Tyrone gave us a stunning match at the end of which it was just possible to slide a bus ticket between them.

The point of this is that with the gap between the top three and the rest even wider by September than it had looked in the spring, an exclusive context had been created.

At full tilt none of these three were troubled by other teams, so it wasn't easy for players from also-ran counties to impress without the corroboration of performing in big matches.

Some importance was attached to Dublin's display in their riveting quarter-final with Tyrone, but the main significance of this match was that Mickey Harte clarified his optimum configuration because of the problems the Leinster champions had posed.

Fully tooled in the replay, Tyrone would have been double-digit winners, but for a late goal.

In other words, good performances against teams outside the top three had questionable currency by the end of the championship.

Without breaching the confidentiality of the selection room or entering into a line-by-line defence of the final 15, it's possible to address in broad terms the issue of Peter Canavan's selection despite his lack of game-time.

Suggestions that he was picked as a career valediction are groundless; the award was on the merits of his season. In terms of leadership and impact, his contribution through a string of matches, when he wasn't injured or otherwise blamelessly off the field, was palpable from the first round in Ulster against Down to the biggest day of the year in September.

Some will argue that such a fractured season shouldn't qualify a player for an All Star, but the selectors disagreed.

There have been suggestions that better statistical records must be made available to selectors in the future. This is a good idea, but sourcing reliable detail is felt to be a problem.

Assuming that this shouldn't be an insuperable difficulty - particularly for the big matches from provincial finals on - there are still limits to the use of statistics.

Those arguing against the provision of data say that All Stars selection is all about opinion and not facts and figures. On the other side, the case for statistics was put in a couple of Sunday papers. In the Sunday Times, Christy O'Connor cited the Opta stats, which are used to rate Premiership soccer players.

There is, however, a difference between a competition during which 20 teams play each other twice in the one season and another still largely based on a knockout format.

Nonetheless, provision of data would doubtless enhance the selection process. This isn't a question of data versus opinion. You've no business having an opinion unless it's firmly grounded in evidence, and with elite county teams increasingly making use of computerised statistics there's no reason why the business of choosing All Stars couldn't be improved.

But material data only enables decent debate - it doesn't render it redundant.

As to the other hardy perennial about who chooses the team, do the All Star teams chosen by celebrity columnists and analysts indicate any superior consensus? Ultimately there's no way of ensuring selections that please everyone.

Finally, and it always seems necessary to emphasise this: the All Stars is a journalists' scheme, conceived, realised and in partnership with the GAA and sponsors, maintained by reporters and their employers. That involvement probably gets the awards more publicity than they strictly merit, but at this time of the year, who's counting?

smoran@irish-times.ie