Jimmy Geoghegan reflects on the sporting year

Player of the Year: The dual player as we know them has long been a threatened species in the GAA for years yet there are one or two expectations - and Aoife Minogue is one of those. Throughout 2023 the Dunderry player put in five-star, hard-working performances for both the Meath senior camogie and football teams. Sometimes she turned out for one team on a Saturday, another on a Sunday. She was outstanding in camogie games with her surging runs from deep helping to turn defence into attack. Her consistent, fully-committed performances was one of the reasons Meath got to All-Ireland Intermediate camogie final. Minogue got a Soaring Star for her consistency over the season.

Coach of the Year: Meath hurling has had its dark day but there were plenty of bright, memorable occasions to savour in 2023. The Royal County caman-wielders won a league and championship double under manager Seoirse Bulfin. The man from Bruff arrived in the Royal County with a big reputation after working with the likes of Davy Fitzgerald in Clare and Wexford. Bulfin didn't disappoint. He turned the Meath team into a confident, slick-moving, battle hardend side with an inner belief that helped them to a NHL Div 2B triumph and a sweet Christy Ring Cup victory in Croke Park. His teams won 13 competitive games out 16 played. Not bad at any level.

Club of the Year: To win one championship in hurling or football is difficult enough. To claim three well that's special, so rare too but Kildalkey achieved that in 2023. They won the senior, intermediate and junior hurling championships. Manager Nick Fitzgerald achieved a hugely commendable personal double coaching the Village teams to senior and intermediate triumphs while Martin Carr led the club's juniors to the top of the mountain. Those triumphs could not have been achieved, of course, without the efforts of the players who deserved fulsome praise - as do the plethora of people behind the scenes who in one way or another down the years made their contributions to the historic treble. This was a united effort by many in a club over a long number of years.

Magic Moment: To be at Louth GAA's Centre of Excellence at Darver recently and see Na Fianna defeat Derry side Eglish was a little special. It wasn't only the fact Na Fianna held off a sturdy Eglish comeback to book a place in the All-Ireland final it was the reaction of the team's supporters and players to the victory. No set of supporters could have celebrated as joyfully as the team's followers did that day. It was a demonstration of the close relationship between a group of players and their supporters, many of whom, of course, are parents of the players. The reaction to the win, and in one or two cases the tears shed, underlined the power of sport to touch the soul. It might 'only' have been an All-Ireland semi-final but the outpouring of emotion was special and heart-felt.

Moan of the Year: Sports reporters who work for local newspapers get to chance to witness some truly wonderful games and occasions that can make the job very worthwhile - but there can be drawbacks too. One of the biggest headaches for reporters are caused when a team is named from one to 15. Fine, you might say, what's wrong with that? Absolutely nothing if the players who are wearing the numbers are actually the players who are named with those numbers on their backs. All too often at club championship games a player will be put down for wearing, say, number 13 when it turns out he has number 12 or 15 on his back. It's impossible to know ALL the players. It's enough to make someone want to pull out their hair - if they had any hair of course!

Hope for 2024: The Meath Co Board recently announced that plans (and far more importantly) the finances appear finally to be coming on stream to allow for the redevelopment of Pairc Tailteann. The plans including the finishing of the new design and putting the project out to tender in the second quarter of the new year with construction to start by the fourth quarter of 2024. Meath GAA fans have heard endless talk of the redevelopment of the venue in recent years yet it stays the same as it was for decades - crumbling and barely fit for purpose - while other GAA venues around the country are transformed. The hope for 2024 is that there are no more hitches and that work begins in modernising the old Pairc.