Our Super League Team of 2021

As the sun sets on the Mayo Super League, we pick our best XI

John Corless

IT’S a very difficult task to select a team of the season. It’s also a very subjective one.  
Given the team ethos of Ballyheane, and the way they played this season, eleven of their squad could easily be selected, and it would be difficult to argue with it.
But that would be unfair to Ballina Town – a team who have also been excellent this year. And what of Westport United and Claremorris? Like the others, they too have really good players. There are many good players too in the other teams who made up the Super League this year.
As with the selection process of any team in any sport, there will be automatic selections and close calls. Putting a team together on paper like this can be cheating a bit too, because if one is selecting a team to play a given match on a given day, individual form as well as the overall balance of the team come into play, as does formation options and the calibre and style of play, of the opposition, the condition of the pitch and the weather. Along with player availability.
So Teams of the Season are inherently flawed from the outset. This, of course, gives the selector great freedom. Players can be named slightly out of position. (This happens frequently with the GAA All-Stars for example.) And the fact that the chosen selection doesn’t have to face any particular opposition gives further freedom.
In selecting this team, as a former team manager within the Mayo League, and as a former selector for the League’s representative side in the Oscar Traynor Cup competition, I have tried to waive these freedoms by choosing a team I’d be happy to go into battle with.
I’ve selected a formation that I feel suits the players available – the best in the Super League in 2021.  
That choice means that many players whom I’d like to have included, have to be left out. But taking everything into account, the selection made is the one I feel the happiest with in the circumstances.  
Of course, another spectator will pick a different eleven – not an entirely different one, perhaps, but is unlikely to pick the exact same eleven.
That said, here is the Mayo News Super League Team of the Season, the Player of the Year and the Manager of the Year, and the rationale for the choices and omissions made.

FORMATION
I’VE chosen a ‘4-1-2-1-2’ formation, which is very similar to the traditional ‘4-4-2’ (and also, contradictingly, a bit like a ‘3-5-2’) with a clearly defined defensive midfielder and a No 10 role – the link-man between midfield and the strikers.
This formation particularly suits two players who were never going to be omitted – given their performances all season. It works well too, with the other players and gives the team shape.

GOALKEEPER
THE two outstanding keepers in the Super League are Emmet Peyton of Ballina Town and Gary Cunningham of Westport United. Ballyheane’s John Vahey is a fine stopper too and Michael Goulding of Ballyhaunis had his moments in 2021. Shaun Pugh, another top keeper who recently departed Castlebar Celtic, would surely have made the shortlist if he had played more games.
In the end I went with Emmet Peyton. The former Nottingham Forest man is not only an excellent goalkeeper, but he leads from the back, encourages his players vocally and sets up so much of Ballina’s attacking play.

FULL-BACKS
THE Ballyheane pair of Jack Rochford and Darragh Ludden nailed this down – not just for their defensive qualities – but for other attributes they bring on to the pitch. Both go quietly about their work. Their all-round game is flawless and their distribution and vison contributed to Ballyheane’s fantastic season. And Rochford will, occasionally, leave his position briefly, to slot home a penalty when required. Ludden takes a mean corner, as Manulla discovered a week ago.
Westport United’s James McGrath and Ballina Town’s Steven Moyles were in contention and one, or both, would have made it on another day.

CENTRE-BACKS
BALLYHEANE’S Jack Tuffy has been the most consistent central defender in the county this year and is an automatic selection. He is a great reader of the game, has excellent positional sense and is an intelligent passer, and was hugely influential in Ballyheane’s title-winning campaign.
Ioseph O’Reilly of Castlebar Celtic might have made it if he had more games played this season, and the perennial Joe Lawless was in contention, and will always be while he continues to tog for Westport United, such is the quality of his play.
In the end I paired Tuffy with the excellent Chris Moore of Ballina Town. I thought he was very solid all season and brings balance to the selection, given the differences in styles of play between himself and Tuffy.
 
DEFENSIVE MIDFIELDER
CHRIS Maughan of Ballina Town is a tremendous player. He is the ultimate battler. He brings a steel and determination to his play and he always gives one hundred percent. He started the season with Manulla and ended it with Ballina Town and an automatic place in the ‘Team of the Season’.

MIDFIELDERS
PLAYING Maughan as a defensive midfielder as well as opting for a No 10, meant that there were two other midfield slots remaining to be filled, and what a difficult job it was to choose from the fine selection of midfielders on show this season.
My decision to rely on the full backs to overlap has cost Claremorris-man Danny Broderick a place on the team. This is a shame because Broderick, in any other circumstances, would be an automatic choice and his omission is the most difficult of all, in putting this team together.  
One of the Bradys – Oisin or Finian – Broderick’s club-mates – might have made it too, and Glenhest’s Chris Rowland, a fantastic player, was also in contention. Manulla’s Andrew Shally has impressed all season and is unlucky to lose out, as is Dylan McKee of Ballina Town.
And James McGrath and Darren Browne of Westport United had very good seasons too.
And then there is Ballyheane. Michael Fahey and Paddy Burke have had excellent seasons and deservedly, have league winners’ medals. Fahey gets better every week and Burke is as industrious a player as you could hope for. SeΡn Kicloyne, for me, just had the edge on the other two. He has been supremely consistent so he’s in, along with Westport United’s Caoimhin O’Toole who has been outstanding all season.

NUMBER 10
TWO words: Liam Irwin. Nothing more needs to be said.
Liam has it all. His was the first name on the sheet. If he wasn’t around, Andy Peters of Claremorris operated very successfully in this role all season before his departure to Leicester, and Andy Cunnane of Ballyhaunis Town is skilled in this role too, but Irwin is a class apart this season and has set a very high standard.

STRIKERS
IN the early part of the season it looked like Jason Hunt of Castlebar Celtic would break all scoring records for the League, until he picked up an injury and was ruled out for most of the season.
Phil Keegan was having a fantastic season for Westport United until he broke his collar bone in a fall at Celtic Park in August. Jamie Cawley and Benny Lavelle of Ballina Town were contenders; both had excellent seasons.
But the real question, when picking strikers, was, who would accompany Ben Edeh in the front line?
The Ballyheane marksman has been brilliant all season and his goals have contributed hugely to their title-winning campaign.
Nathan Reilly-Doyle put us all on notice on numerous occasions, and is unlucky to lose out. In the end, Mark Maloney, the young Claremorris free-scoring striker, gets the nod. He gets goals and that is ultimately what wins matches, and what you put a striker on the pitch to do.
TEAM CAPTAIN
AFTER leading his side to the title, Ballyheane’s SeΡn Kilcoyne deservedly gets the armband.

MANAGER OF THE SEASON
ASHLEY Stevenson – no contest. Ballyheane’s first title. The first time in eighteen years that a team outside the super-axis of Ballina Town/Castlebar Celtic/Westport United have won the top title.
History makers and all the rest. Ashley instilled belief in his squad and they delivered.
Mark Beattie has done a fantastic job with Ballina Town and he (and they) were unlucky to encounter Ballyheane this year. Mickey Feeney is rebuilding a dangerous-looking Westport United side and Bryan Mannion did an excellent job with Castlebar Celtic, in what was a difficult season for them.
Paul Burke took Claremorris as high as they can go, in his first season in charge. Any other year, any of these might have made it, but this was Ballyheane’s year and Ashley Stevenson’s.

PLAYER OF THE SEASON
THREE contenders – all from Ballyheane.
Jack Tuffy gave a masterclass in defending, every time he pulled on the Ballyheane shirt this season.   Ben Edeh is a brilliant and quick young forward with an eye for the goal.
But Liam Irwin is my ‘Player of the Season’. His contribution, more than any other individual player’s, is the reason Ballyheane are champions and he is a deserving winner, in my view.