ORCHARD CONTINUE ULSTER DOMINANCE
Richard Bullick
The recent Irish News Ulster All Stars had a real orange tinge to them with the Orchard dominating the ceremonial line-up in both men’s and ladies football and Armagh players scooping the main individual accolade in each code.
Crossmaglen legend Lauren McConville won Ladies Footballer of the Year while her Orchard captain Clodagh McCambridge’s brother Barry McCambridge was crowned Men’s Footballer of the Year at the Belfast banquet.
The last time that Armagh had taken home the two top prizes in Ulster gaelic football was in 2022, when McConville’s cousin Rian O’Neill picked up Men’s Player of the Year and Aimee Mackin won the female equivalent.
Nine Armagh representatives made the Team of the Year for men’s football on the back of this season’s All Ireland title triumph while eight orangewomen were included in the ladies football Team of the Year on the back of being crowned provincial champions.
With Aimee Mackin’s cruciate rupture presumably hurting her chances this time, Carrickcruppen goalkeeper Anna Carr is now the only Armagh player to have made the ladies football line-up in all five seasons since its inception.
McCambridge lost out in the first year due to an administrative error while McConville missed that Orchard campaign due to her Australian sabbatical, but both now have four consecutive Ulster All Stars to their name.
As provincial champions in four of the past five seasons, it is perhaps unsurprising that Armagh have dominated the ladies Ulster All Stars, accounting for just over half of the 75 awards this decade despite being only one of nine counties.
Of the seven players to have collected more than two Ulster All Stars, all but Donegal captain Niamh McLaughlin is from Armagh, with former skipper Kelly Mallon and Blaithin Mackin each having accumulated three.
A total of 18 Armagh players between them account for 38 of the 75 Ulster All Stars awarded to date, including a trio of first-time recipients this season in siblings Niamh and Dearbhla Coleman along with their Clann Eireann club captain Niamh Henderson.
Dromintee dynamo Aoife McCoy and Ballyhegan’s Grace Ferguson were honoured again this autumn for the first time since their inclusion in the inaugural line-up – a surprising gap –while the iconic Caroline O’Hanlon has also been a recipient twice.
Sarah Marley, Shauna Grey, Tiarna Grimes and Aveen Bellew each got their only Ulster All Star in 2020, while Niamh Marley made the ceremonial line-up two years later and Eve Lavery the following season.
Armagh heavily dominated that first selection with 11 players in the Team of 2020 but their representation has continued to be healthy ever since with half a dozen Ulster All Stars in 2021 and 2023, seven the year in between and the eight this time.
This was a fantastic season for Armagh under new manager Greg McGonigle as they reached their first ever National League final, in which they came from behind to defeat Kerry in Croke Park, and reclaimed the provincial crown from bitter rivals Donegal.
The Orchard crew reached just the fifth All Ireland semi-final in Armagh’s history and were weakened by injury when they went down narrowly in Tullamore to the Kingdom women, who then had a convincing victory over Galway in the early August showpiece.
So it was no surprise that Armagh got a dozen nominations, though there were still four notable Orchard omissions from the shortlist in O’Hanlon, both Mackin sisters and Harps young gun Emily Druse.
There is some confusion as to what specific performances count towards the Irish News All Stars, given that the shortlist is announced while the All Ireland series is still in full swing, yet it evidently isn’t based purely on the provincial championship.
By way of illustration, Orla McGeough was shortlisted despite not playing in Derry’s only provincial championship match this year – the Ulster Junior final loss to Fermanagh – as she was away on international netball duty with Northern Ireland that weekend.
O’Hanlon was excellent throughout the National League and played the full 80 minutes, including extra-time, in the Ulster final before sitting out Armagh’s two All Ireland group games through the injury which constrained her a bit in both knockout rounds thereafter.
But she still did enough to receive a national All Star nomination, as did Blaithin Mackin who missed the entire National League campaign and Ulster final while recovering from a medial ligament tear.
Star forward Aimee Mackin’s season was ended prematurely by the cruciate rupture she suffered in the second half of the final but she had already made a significant contribution on the day and had been an influential figure in Armagh’s NFL title triumph.
Druse can consider herself a little unlucky not to be shortlisted having started in all but one of the 13 Armagh matches this season, while a case could have been made for even more than eight Orchard representatives in the final line-up.
The quartet who didn’t make the cut were former skipper Mallon, Armagh’s breakout star of this season Roisin Mulligan, Lavery and Cait Towe, who along with Catherine Marley is the biggest Orchard name of recent years not to have picked up an Ulster All Star at this stage.
Like Blaithin Mackin and O’Hanlon, Towe is among the eight Armagh players shortlisted for this season’s national All Stars, with Henderson and the Coleman sisters the trio of newly-honoured Ulster All Stars to miss out on that accolade.
Along with the Orchard eight, the 2024 Irish News All Stars line-up features two players from provincial runners-up Donegal, with All Ireland Junior champions Fermanagh getting three selections, Ulster Intermediate title winners Down two and Tyrone one.
McCambridge and Ferguson are joined in the full back line by Donegal’s rising star Abigail Temple Asokuh, while centre half back McConville is flanked by county colleague Dearbhla Coleman and Fermanagh’s Lisa Maguire.
Niamh Coleman is partnered in midfield by Tyrone captain Aoibhinn McHugh while Donegal skipper Niamh McLaughlin anchors the half forward line with McCoy and Down’s Laoise Duffy either side of her.
Henderson has been selected in a full forward division which includes Fermanagh pair Eimear Smyth, the LGFA’s Golden Boot winner on the back of her prolific feats for the Ernewomen in the Junior Championship, and Baithin Bogue.
Like every year since ladies football started getting the full Ulster All Stars treatment, Carr has got the nod between the posts and deservedly so after a tough time at a personal level, losing her father during the season.
National League final Player of the Match and All Ireland Player of the Month for April, Lauren McConville was a worthy winner of the Ulster Ladies Footballer of the Year award though the trophy had to be collected on her behalf by mum Michelle.
There was a video message for the assembled guests from Lauren, who along with McLaughlin is currently playing for Queensland side Gold Coast Suns in the AFLW, while Bogue is away with North Melbourne Kangaroos.
Armagh’s representatives in the men’s football Team of the Year are Blaine Hughes, Aaron McKay, Barry McCambridge, captain Aidan Forker, Niall Grimley, Rory Grugan, Oisin Conaty, Rian O’Neill and Conor Turbitt, with Sinead Quinn the sole Orchard camog honoured.
