Senior Footballer & Manager winners – Munster GAA Awards

Footballer, Ladies Footballer, Manager of the Year and Under 21 Hurler Announced for 2016 Munster GAA Awards

Kerry’s Paul Geaney and Cork’s Rena Buckley have secured the Senior Footballer and Ladies’ Footballer accolades respectively in the 2016 Munster GAA Awards. The Manager of the Year award goes to Tipperary senior hurling manager, Michael Ryan and the under 21 Hurling Award goes to Austin Gleeson of Waterford. The awards will be presented on Saturday night at a gala dinner in the Rochestown Park Hotel in Cork where all the award winners for 2016 will be honoured.

Paul Geaney recovered from injury to emerge as the stand-out forward of the championship season in Munster. The Dingle player, has already scored 6-48 in 17 championship appearances in the green and gold, 3-15 of that tally coming this Summer past. He was in superb form in the Munster final when hitting 2-3 in a man-of-the-match display against Tipperary. His superb contribution of 1-4 from play in the All-Ireland semi-final will live long in the memory. A first All Star award followed.

Victory in the All-Ireland Senior Ladies Football Final this year confirmed the latest achievement in the incredible career of Rena Buckley from Cork. Victory on September 25th brought her All Ireland Senior medal tally to a staggering 17 with 11 in ladies football and 6 in camogie. She has also won 11 Munster Ladies Football Senior Championships and 10 Ladies Football National League Division 1 medals. Success has also followed on the club front with county, Munster and All Ireland Club titles captured with Donoughmore.

Taking over as Manager in 2016 having served on previous management teams with Liam Sheedy and Eamon O’Shea, Michael Ryan brought plenty of experience and ability to the role. His new responsibilities fell lightly on his shoulders and he guided Tipperary to a second successive Munster title and then went on to lead them to All-Ireland success with an inspiring performance against old rivals Kilkenny in the All-Ireland final. Tipperary’s victory put paid to the notion that winning the Munster championship was an obstacle to All-Ireland success.

Austin Gleeson is one of the finest young hurlers to have emerged in recent years. He gave fantastic displays for Waterford at under 21 and senior levels this year and his under 21 player of the year in Munster award is a further acknowledgement of the abilities of the GAA / GPA Hurler and Young Hurler of the Year for 2016.

Speaking on the announcement of these awards Jerry O’Sullivan, Chairman of Munster GAA said “Paul Geaney and Rena Buckley contributed hugely to their teams’ performances this year and are deserving winner of the top playing awards in Gaelic Football and Ladies Gaelic Football respectively. Austin Gleeson was the star of the under 21 hurling championship and made a huge impact at senior as well. It was marvellous to see the Munster Hurling champions, Tipperary, go on to win the All-Ireland final. They played hurling as it should be played and their Manager, Michael Ryan, deserves great credit for bringing Munster and All-Ireland honours in his first year in charge. He is a deserving winner of “Manager of the Year”

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The full list of Munster GAA Award winners for 2016 are as follows:

Charlie McCarthy (Cork) – Hurling Hall of Fame
John Quane (Limerick) – Football Hall of Fame
Micheál Mac Conmara (An Clár) – Special Service Award – contribution to Scór
Michael Hurley (Cork) – Under 21 Football
Austin Gleeson (Waterford) – Under 21 Hurling
David Conroy (Clare) – Intermediate Hurling
Jamie Lee (Limerick) – Junior Football
Jake Morris (Tipperary) – Minor Hurling
David Clifford (Kerry) – Minor Football
Niamh Mulcahy (Limerick) – Camogie
Rena Buckley (Cork) – Ladies Football
Aishling O’Keeffe (Cork) – Handball
Ballyea (Clare) – Club
John McGrath (Tipperary) – Senior Hurling
Paul Geaney (Kerry) – Senior Football
Michael Ryan (Tipperary) – Manager

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For further information, please contact:
Ger Ryan, Munster GAA PRO
Email: pro.munster@gaa.ie, Tel: 086 8149146