Who was the greatest.?? Brolly went with Canavan

https://m.independent.ie/sport/columnists/joe-brolly/joe-brolly-sublime-finisher-but-colm-cooper-didnt-have-answers-when-asked-tough-questions-35607170.html

hamsterdean (Limerick) - Posts: 223 - 04/02/2020 22:00:09    2265235

germac (Down) - Posts: 533 - 04/02/2020 23:29:11    2265255

germac (Down) - Posts: 533 - 04/02/2020 23:36:12    2265256

Caravan for me.in my opnion the best player I have seen

ifindoubt (Donegal) - Posts: 133 - 05/02/2020 00:38:19    2265259

I'm probably biased here (in the words of Ciarán Whelan) but it has to be Canavan. On account of his performances in the mid 1990s, essentially dragging an average Tyrone team to an All Ireland final and a couple of Ulsters while Ulster football was at its strongest. Such a relief to all of us that he was still there to contribute so effectively to our first two All Ireland wins in 2003 and 2005.

Gooch won a lot but played on stronger teams and did not have the singular influence on games that God had.

OGarmaile (Tyrone) - Posts: 248 - 05/02/2020 09:17:26    2265272

peter canavan

mickcunningham (Westmeath) - Posts: 1799 - 05/02/2020 09:25:05    2265275

I loved watching both of them, 2 fantastic footballers on the field and 2 gentlemen off the field.

KingdomBoy1 (Kerry) - Posts: 14092 - 05/02/2020 09:42:54    2265282

Thats a tough one, the Gooch was a nice footballer, he could score, play make, attack directly, free take and hit some long and short rangers.

What counts against him in my opinion, is the Gooch and that Kerry team i think show they were a bit of a flat track bully team, most of their success's came against fairly straightforward opposition in finals and the like and they were regularly beaten by Tyrone and Dublin teams in their periods of dominance.

On the opposite hand Canavan, had all of the above to, was more of an out and out forward then the Gooch especially as the Gooch got older, played a big hand in taking Tyrone from nowhere to an All Ireland final in the 90's, putting Tyrone on the map and leading them to being the dominant team of the 00's full tilt. That is some achievement given Tyrones historical record up t that point. That legacy lives strong today.

Id probably go with the Gooch as a better player, as hell he was beautiful player, always enjoyed watching him, probably more so then Canavan and so versatile so why not, the game is there to be enjoyed. But for achievement and legacy when context is added id say Canavan made a greater contribution and was more successful relatively speaking.

TheUsername (Dublin) - Posts: 4445 - 05/02/2020 09:45:15    2265284

I'd have to go for Canavan too, but it's close.
One argument against Gooch would be the following. He played in 9 All-Ireland finals, winning 4. Of the 4 he won (Mayo×2 and Cork×2), it could very easily be argued that Kerry would have won all 4 without him. 3 were hammerings and the 4th in 2009, Gooch didn't score from play.
He played on phenomenal teams that stretched from the Seamus Moynihan era to 15 years later. The quality of player that those Kerry teams had was incredible.
Canavan of course also played with some excellent players, but mainly in the latter part of his career. He was by a distance the main man for most of his earlier days.

WanPintWin (Galway) - Posts: 2037 - 05/02/2020 09:45:39    2265285

It would have been interesting to see how Gooch would have fared in the white heat of the Ulster championship. In Canavan's younger days he was always a marked man in Ulster and took a fair bit of punishment, as indeed he did against Meath in the 96 semi-final. Still, I can't ever remember him complaining to a referee, not even when he was wrongly sent off against Armagh in Croke Park (in 2003, I think), Over the years he had to learn how to "look after himself" but his sublime skills always shone through. I would rate him alongside Maurice Fitzgerald and Matt Connor as the best I have seen but Gooch wouldn't be far behind.

midlands (Westmeath) - Posts: 541 - 05/02/2020 10:52:29    2265302

Gooch. But Alan Brogan was a better baller than either of them :)

Joxer (Dublin) - Posts: 4700 - 05/02/2020 19:32:16    2265482

centerfield (Mayo) - Posts: 360 - 05/02/2020 20:00:32    2265491

Gooch was a great player and played in a lot of All Ireland finals. Can anyone think of a final he stood out in; like Canavan did in 1995 and 2005? In 1995 he dragged an average Tyrone to the brink of a drawn final at the very least and scored a key goal in 2005 to lead Tyrone to the All Ireland. From 2002 to 2009 whilst Gooch won more medals I can't think of him making the same significant impact as Canavan did, certainly made little or no impact against the other great teams of that decade. Canavan without a debate.

sam1884 (UK) - Posts: 999 - 05/02/2020 20:56:39    2265511

GeniusGerry (Kerry) - Posts: 2105 - 05/02/2020 23:24:16    2265560

Has to be Canavan for me. Gooch a close 2nd though.

TomReilly (Monaghan) - Posts: 11 - 05/02/2020 23:35:12    2265562

Very different types of players, carrying out different roles; comparisons are a bit daft; it all depends what type of player you prefer. Both sublime at what they did; and it seems distasteful to say anything that would be construed as suggesting that either man was anything other than pure quality; we're lucky to have seen them both.

Gooch and Canavan, while very different characters with different roles and different styles, both still had something in common - an ability to do something completely unscripted and off-the-cuff / un-coachable. You couldn't take your eyes off them because you never were sure what they might do next. To me, and this is just my opinion, the pair of them were head and shoulders above and beyond in the last 25 years.

There are a few brilliant conventional players snapping at their heels; but all those players, while brilliant, did more or less what you hoped they might do. Whereas Gooch and PC could on occasion do stuff plodders like me *couldn't even imagine*. And that's the difference. Years afterwards, I still recall stuff Canavan did in games, long after the result has ceased to matter.

Canavan used to (sometimes literally, e.g., that Down defender in Omagh in 2005) leave men on their *ss just by selling a series of impossible-to-read dummies at speed, "twisted blood" in the manner of G Best. Cooper went round men with a different technique again, one based on superb balance. He had this ability to "freeze frame" himself *mid stride* - without wobbling or becoming unbalanced. He always had almost every point on the compass to run at. The lad trying to mark him by this stage was flailing and trying to recover, but it would be too late already ... Both techniques very different; both tremendous fun to watch.

PC struggled in obscurity (nationally speaking) for the bulk of his career, was injured in 03 and was scraping the barrel in 2005. But without him, we'd have been dead and buried in Ulster in 05. His scoring exhibition against a rugged Cavan team in the 05 replay will live long in my memory. At the end, as the young Cavan defender shepherded him out to the corner flag on the right wing, job done you'd think, but Peter unleashed that famous sliced shot, where
the cut on the ball was so extreme it was close to being a mis-kick. As the un-scoreable point sailed over, in fairness to the Cavan lad, he just shook his head and burst out laughing.

I remember something he did against Enniskillen in an Ulster club match. Two Enniskillen defenders were running towards him, converging from different angles, to close him down. He did some sort of imperceptible shimmy (not sure what, even though I was watching); and the 2 lads instantly turned and ran the wrong way, literally running at nothing; prompting laughter from even their own fans and cries of "he's behind you".

I remember a Tyrone match in Clones where PC was racing onto a bouncing ball as the opposition half back was running onto the ball from the other direction. PC got to the ball first and most players would have got the ball into their hand asap and maybe tried a dummy or a pass; and you could see Canavan's marker preparing himself for either eventuality. Instead, without breaking stride or slowing down, Caravan ran over the ball and chopped down sharply on it with the inside of his left boot and chipped the ball out sideways,into the hands of the Tyrone player who had been shadowing Canavan. The opposition full back momentarily couldn't work out where the ball had disappeared to. The Tyrone guy who had got the lightning sleight-of-foot pass hadn't expected it either and was so startled that he dropped it. While both of them were getting their bearings, Canavan nipped around both of them and stuck it over the bar.

I remember in 03 his long-distance lob over the goalie v Fermanagh at the start of the second half. It was audacious; nobody else on either team or in the crowd had spotted the angle from that distance and there was a few seconds stunned silence before the roar went up. Next day in the Irish News, they rated him 9 out of 10 and said the man's a genius.

PC could also make a cod of you in other ways, as Pat McEnaney recounts. In a bad-tempered Tyrone V Derry game with lots of off the ball stuff going on, Tyrone got a free after PC was fouled. The free was too far out to be scorable. As Pat awarded the free and immediately ran up the field to be in position, he heard a Derry player protesting angrily - "ah for ****'s sake ref, that was no free!". There had been a lot of dissent and back chat and Pat was having none of it and he moved the ball forward 20 yards. Making it scorable. As PC stuck it over the bar, Pat said he had this awful sudden realisation that maybe that wasn't a Derry accent. Of course, on getting the free and seeing instantly that it wasn't;t scorable and seeing that Pat's back was turned, PC immediately pretended to be a Derry man and effed and blinded about the decision. Pat said it ruined the game of him; the Derry players thought he had lost it.

Personally though, in a Tyrone context, much as I rate Canavan, for me he's our 2nd best ever player; behind Frank McGuigan.

essmac (Tyrone) - Posts: 1141 - 06/02/2020 00:33:50    2265568

oneoff (UK) - Posts: 1380 - 06/02/2020 08:53:08    2265586

KingdomBoy1 (Kerry) - Posts: 14092 - 06/02/2020 09:38:15    2265593

TheHermit (Kerry) - Posts: 6354 - 06/02/2020 09:49:12    2265599

TheHermit (Kerry) - Posts: 6354 - 06/02/2020 10:18:04    2265609