The 2017 Championship was a memorable one for Carlow. It lasted until mid-July, featuring a win against Wexford in Leinster and two in the qualifiers.
They only exited after a hard-fought game against Monaghan in round three. That was a match which saw just a single point between the two sides with four minutes to go. Fintan Kelly's late goal would provide badly needed relief for Monaghan supporters.
Their Leinster Championship quarter-final against Dublin was live on Sky Sports, a memorable game for more reasons than that it saw the incident which would lead to Diarmuid Connolly receiving a 12-week ban for laying a finger on linesman Ciaran Brannigan.
Carlow the only team not to concede a goal in championship to Dublin this year!
— Brendan Murphy (@BrendanMurphy17) September 17, 2017
The concession of 0-19 on the scoreboard meant that Carlow would finish the Championship as the only team not to concede a goal to the All-Ireland champions.
Speaking on KCLR, Carlow manager Turlough O'Brien felt his side were unlucky not to receive any All-Star nominations. He felt in particular that Sean Murphy - who gave a Man of the Match display against Dublin - was deserving of recognition.
Sean Murphy gave an outstanding display against Dublin in the Championship and he won Man of the Match and he outplayed the Dublin midfield, and he certainly I thought would have been one that would have been thrown in the mix, but then midfield is a very difficult place to get a nomination.
O'Brien also thought forward Paul Broderick should have been among the 45 names. He found the nomination of Donegal's Paddy McBreaty ahead of Broderick particularly perplexing.
Paul Broderick too would have been very very unlucky not to get a nomination. He had a phenomenal year on the scoring charts and when you see Paddy McBrearty getting nominated ahead of him, an all-star nomination for a County like Carlow would be a massive boost to local GAA people and to promote the game locally so we would be disappointed.
