Michael Shields paid a glowing tribute to Bernard Brogan after yesterday's All-Ireland football semi-final, insisting that the Dublin sharpshooter should get the Footballer of the Year award.

Brogan maintained his sparkling form with another impressive haul (1-7), but Shields did curb his influence somewhat following his switch onto him in the second half.

"You have to give credit to Brogan. He's a class act and he stuck that goal brilliantly early on. It was a long ball in and Ray (Carey) was unlucky to get caught after he stepped out," the Cork full back said.

"He kicked one point after I had just switched onto him. Another one then, I gave away the ball myself, it was really silly.

"But when the ball's played into him, the angle he kicks off are phenomenal. I just tried to box some balls away and beat him out to a few others. You got to give him credit, he's a class act and if he gets a sniff of it, it's gone over the bar.

"If he was to go on and get Player of the Year, I certainly wouldn't begrudge him. They play a very good system with him, keeping just two inside and giving him a lot of space to work with."

The St. Finbarr's clubman felt the pain of recent Croke Park defeats is what got Cork over the line yesterday.

"If you go back to '07, we were a young team. Kerry hammered us and they deserved to hammer us, but every year since we've been progressing and that was experience there today, we didn't panic, we stuck to our task and we knew we'd get our chance," he added. Tweet

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