IN ALL FAIRNESS - Who’d be an awards judge

Next Saturday night sees the annual RTE Sports Awards take place.

No matter who wins the major awards categories such as Team of the Year, Manager of the Year, and the big one, Sports Personality of the Year, there will be an element of controversy. That is because the calibre of athlete and teams shortlisted are incredible and each of the nominees are deserving of winning their category. It goes to show the high level of sporting prowess this country is enjoying at the moment, not only at national level, but internationally.

My concern with these awards is the nature of how they are chosen. I am not a fan of public votes as they are open to abuse where the most deserving winner might not be chosen as they don’t have the fan base behind them to vote compared to someone else. A small group of people on a committee remains the best way of coming to a consensus as they will always look at the bigger picture.

The shortlist for Team of the Year include; the Ireland men’s rugby team - world number 1, the Irish Women’s Boxing team who won seven medals at the European Amateur Championships, the Kerry senior football team – All-Ireland champions, Kilkenny senior camogie team – All-Ireland champions; Limerick senior hurlers – All-Ireland champions; Meath senior ladies footballers – All-Ireland champions; Paul O’Donovan & Fintan McCarthy - World Rowing champions; the Republic of Ireland senior ladies soccer team; Shamrock Rovers – League of Ireland champions; and the para-cycling tandem duo of Katie-George Dunlevy and Eve McCrystal who won their sixth World Championship title in 2022.

In a popularity contest, the likelihood is the Republic of Ireland senior ladies soccer team will win as they qualified for the World Cup for the first time and is the most high profile. The next would be the Irish rugby team and they certainly have had a great year, winning a test series in New Zealand for the first time and end the year as the worlds number one ranked team.

Both have valid arguments to be chosen as team of the year, but I feel they should not be because they didn’t win anything in 2022. They have no title or championship to show for their year, despite it being an exceptional one.

I think achievement has to be a deciding factor when it comes to these awards and I feel the Rowing duo of Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy should win Team of the Year hands down, not just because they retained their World Championship title, but they are by far and away the most dominant in their chosen discipline that this country has ever produced. They are to rowing as what New Zealand are to rugby when in their pomp, no one is close to them. The only reason they don’t get more accolades is rowing doesn’t get the publicity compared to soccer and rugby, and that’s why they might lose out again in these awards.

The Coach of the Year award is the likely to be along the same lines. Vera Pauw (Republic of Ireland ladies soccer) and Andy Farrell (Ireland men’s rugby) are likely to be the favourites, but what Zaur Antia, the Ireland boxing coach, has done with women’s boxing in recent years is unprecedented. Despite the loss of coaches of the calibre of Billy Walsh and Bernard Dunne from the boxing ranks in recent years, Antia remains the constant in all those amateur boxing glories, both male and female, going back to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Finally we come to the big one, Sports Personality of the Year, and the level of the nominees for such a small country is incredible; Rachael Blackmore - the first woman to land the Cheltenham Gold Cup with A Plus Tard; Amy Broadhust - gold at the World Amateur Boxing Championships; David Clifford – Gaelic Footballer of the Year; Ronan Grimes - World & European Road Paracycling medallist; Ciara Mageean – European athletics 1500m silver medallist; Katie McCabe - FAI's Women's Senior Player of the Year; Rhys McClenaghan – gold medallist at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships; Rory McIlroy – World number 1 golfer and winner of the PGA and Race to Dubai Tours, Katie Taylor - unbeaten in all 22 professional fights to retain her four world lightweight titles, and Josh van der Flier - World Rugby Men's Player of the Year.

This is a tough one as all have achieved something. So, what then? Does international success such as Amy Broadhurst, trump what David Clifford has achieved with Kerry, despite not having an international element to Gaelic Football. Personally, what Rory McIlroy has done this year, despite not winning a major, has been incredible and to have an Irish man at the top of the sport of golf worldwide is massive and to be able to claim his as ours should not be undervalued.