As someone who occasionally takes pen or keyboard in hand to comment on Gaelic games, An Fear Rua has the deepest respect for other journalists - members of the world's second oldest profession - who make a living by commenting or reporting on our national games …

Occasionally, the published selections of 'star' teams would suggest that some of our more eminent scribes have had more than their nether regions affected through over-exposure to cold, concrete benches, under a leaky roof, beneath a 40 watt, naked bulb, reading rain-sodden notes while dictating match reports across a crackly phone line to a bemused copytaker in a Dublin newsroom - from what are laughingly termed the media 'facilities' at many a provincial ground. The An Post Millennium football team is a good example of the kind of selection AFR has in mind.

Now, picking All Stars and 'teams of the century' is one of our great, national innocent pastimes, and AFR would be the last man to want to discourage it. Many's the gloomy night has been passed in the shnug of Ma Molloy's drinking emporium by some of the wide boys of the Gowlnacalley-John Redmonds club arguing whether The 'Slacker' MacNamara was a better full back on the team of '31 than The 'Masher' Dowdall.

However, this year's Eircell All Stars hurling team is an honourable exception to the trend of eccentricity in journalists' team selections. Clearly, the panel of journalists have learned from last year's selection, which seemed to be based on the premise that only two games matter in hurling - the All Ireland semi-final and final - and that it mattered most to be on the winning team.

The 1999 All Star selection is a superb team. What An Fear Rua likes about it is that it honours several players who turned in stellar performances consistently throughout the year, even when they were part of losing teams, and sometimes in the less 'glamourous' competitions. So, it is good to see Brian Whelehan being honoured for the fourth time and DJ Carey for the seventh time in nine years. Some of the denizens along the banks of the Nore might have preferred Dennis Byrne to Andy Comerford, though in a 'losing' year for Kilkenny, the county has done well to have two players selected. Brian Corcoran, of course, has been the giant of hurling this year and is, in An Fear Rua's book, the 1999 Player of the Year by a long chalk.

However, the jewel in the crown of this selection… the choice that confirms that this was a team selected by a bunch of people who have some inkling around what the game of hurling is all about (not always true you know when you're talking about sports journalists, reminds An Fear Rua)… is the choice of Tomás Dunne, captain of both Toomevara and Tipperary, at mid-field.

It's a long way from the cool, hyperclean environment of Intel's microchip factory in Leixlip, County Kildare, to the heat of a National Hurling League final or the blood and thunder of a Munster final clash against a rampant Clare. But that was the road chosen by Tomás Dunne.

Tommy - as he was known to his Intel colleagues - was one of the many thousands of young men and women in well-paid, interesting jobs in the Celtic Tiger's high tech industries. Intel is renowned for how well they look after their workforce. There, Tommy would have had a good basic wage, a generous shift premium, maybe even a few Intel shares and good pension and health care schemes. But in the heart of every Tipp man - not least the sons of Toomevara - there is a more primeval call, a call that is far stronger than even the financial blandishments of the world's leading high tech company. It is the call of Jimmy Doyle, John Doyle, Donie Nealon and Tony Doyle: the unending desire to lead a Tipperary team to All Ireland victory in hurling. Against that prospect, the world's biggest manufacturer of microchips just hadn't a chance.... Tommy upped and returned to his native Toomevara to concentrate on his hurling.

When you meet him, Tomás Dunne is a quiet-spoken, unassuming kind of chap, by no means tall or strapping. But there is an intensity in the dark eyes that marks him out as someone different. And, when he takes a hurley in his hand, he is a man transformed. His two points from sideline cuts, in the defeat of Clare in the NHL semi-final, alone were worth the entrance money to the Limerick Gaelic Grounds on that rain-sodden Sunday.

As a stripling of eighteen years, Tommy Dunne made his debut in the 1993 League campaign. He won his All Star in mid-field in the team of '97, who went down twice to Clare in the Munster and All Ireland finals. As Oscar Wilde might have remarked, to lose once to Clare in the same year seems like a tragedy, to lose twice seems like carelessness (although few GAA teams would be likely to admit the bould Oscar to their dressing room, given the famous writer's well-known proclivities....) At one time, Tommy was seen as someone who could be slotted into odd jobs on the team. Now, like a good wine, he has matured and his play has evolved into a confident and complete style, with a tremendous workrate.

The past few years have not been good for the Premier County's senior hurlers. It is now eight years since Tipperary last carried the Liam McCarthy cup back to the Square in Thurles. This for a county that proudly boasts 24 senior All Ireland titles. Last year's Championship defeat by Waterford really rankled with Tommy. It was in the ashes of that defeat in Páirc Uí Chaoimh, that steel entered into Dunne's resolve. He swore in his heart that day he would lead Tipperary out of that trough. So far, an All Ireland triumph has eluded him, but An Fear Rua has no doubt that will come in time.

This year, Tomás led Tipperary to their seventeenth National Hurling League title. In the championship, he was outstanding in both the draw and defeat against Clare, contributing seventeen points himself to his team's tally. But it was in the lesser-known jerseys of Toomevara and Munster that Tommy produced some of his finest performances this year - in the two AIB Club games against Ahane of Limerick and on a rain-sodden pitch when the hurlers of Connacht-Galway defeated the pick of Munster in the Railway Cup.

In those games, Dunne was playing for pride of parish and pride of province. In An Fear Rua's humble opinion, there are far too many GAA 'stars' who will turn it on for the crowds - and the scribes in the press dugout - when the sun is shining and the sod is good and there's a chance of advancement to a provincial or All Ireland medal. It takes a fair hurler indeed to lead, cajole and inspire the men around him in front of only 427 spectators at a Railway Cup match on a dark Sunday in Athenry. Tomás Dunne is such a man.

The so-called controversy over the non-selection of Clare's Davy Fitzgerald should not be allowed to cloud the quality of this selection. Both Fitzgerald's whinging reaction and that of his mentor, The Great Ger Loughnane (all present face Bodyke and bow to the waist three times … ) are - if I may mix metaphors - a red herring. Lookit, An Fear Rua is the first to declare that the Clare renaissance has immensely added to the wonder of hurling and they are - unquestionably - the team of the Decade. But this kind of constant whining and challenging of everyone else's decision, this feeling that everything belongs to Clare as of right sometimes makes AFR long for a return to the days when Clare inevitably exited the championship in the first round to a whopping defeat from Waterford or Limerick ! It's precisely the Fitzgerald/Loughnane type of reaction that is driving decent hurling followers everywhere to a similar conclusion. It's interesting to note that, after five years, Clare selectors like Tony Considine have stepped down. Could it be that even in the Banner County itself there are people who regret the replacement of the famous Clare 'Shout' w