O’Neill-Keane appointment most memorable moment of 2013

The appointment of Martin O'Neill as manager of the Irish football team and Roy Keane as his assistant was the most memorable sporting moment of 2013, according to an opinion poll to be published today, with Rob Heffernan's World Championship success considered the year's greatest achievement and Katie Taylor the country's biggest sporting star.

A thousand adults representing a cross section of the Irish public were interviewed for the Pembroke Communications Sports Sentiment Index, launched today by Irish Sports Council chief executive John Treacy, and while many of the categories were close run things , the public’s preferences were clear, with the Clare hurlers and women’s international rugby team amongst the other notables.

Tony McCoy featured prominently in several categories after riding the 4,000th winner of his career last month but he couldn’t match Taylor or Heffernan’s popularity amongst the poll’s respondents.

After her triumphant 2012, when she won both world and Olympic titles, Taylor had a relatively subdued 2013 but she continues to be regarded as "Ireland's greatest sports star", receiving the support of a quarter of those asked, well ahead of Brian O'Driscoll and McCoy, second and third respectively. McCoy was pipped to the "greatest achievement" title by Heffernan, who won gold in Moscow, having finished fourth in London the previous summer.

Peripheral status
The slightly peripheral status of his sport goes some way to explaining the fact the 35 year-old racewalker from Cork only received 13 per cent of the votes despite the scale of his achievement, but that was still one per cent better than McCoy and four ahead of the Irish women's rugby team, the Dublin footballers and the Clare hurlers, all of whom tied for third place with nine per cent.

Two of those tied for the title of team of the year, with the women’s Grand Slam success and Clare’s remarkable All Ireland triumph both registering strongly with respondents.

Neither team featured in the top five when it came to the “iconic sporting moment” of 2013, however, although the absence of Heffernan’s win from the list is perhaps even more surprising. Amongst the most fondly remembered moments, it was found, was Rob Kearney’s try against the All Blacks, The appointment of O’Neill and Keane topped the list, though, ahead, once again, of McCoy’s win on Mountain Tunes at Towcester the same week.