After a week of debate, the results are now in. We can reveal our 10th 15 for 30 team - Kildare's best county football team of the last 30 years, as voted by the public.
Big votes for Johnny Doyle, Martin Lynch, Dermot Earley, Glenn Ryan and Anthony Rainbow were no surprise, while it was interesting to see current star forward Daniel Flynn also break into the top 5 in the voting.
Kildare's Kieran McGeeney nearly years weren't forgotten either by voters, especially in defence with the likes of Emmet Bolton, Mick Foley and Peter Kelly all getting safely onto the team.
The biggest competition came in the half forward line. There was an incredibly tight battle for two places between James Kavanagh, Eddie McCormack and Declan Kerrigan. Amazingly, just 5 votes separated the three players, and in the end, to the surprise of many, McCormack, the star wing-forward of the Mick O'Dwyer era, missed out to Kavanagh by literally two votes.
The final team lines up as follows:
1. Christy Byrne;
2. Brian Lacey, 3. Michael Foley, 4. Peter Kelly;
5. Emmet Bolton, 6. Glenn Ryan, 7. Anthony Rainbow;
8. Dermot Earley, 9. Niall Buckley;
10. James Kavanagh, 11. Declan Kerrigan, 12. Johnny Doyle;
13. Martin Lynch, 14. Daniel Flynn, 15. Tadhg Fennin.
Unsurprisingly, Mick O'Dwyer's Leinster title winning men of 1998 and 2000 have the healthiest representation on the team with 10 of the team having played in the 2000 Leinster final.
That the great Johnny Doyle was the biggest vote getter will come as no surprise, but the his margin over second placed Martin Lynch was a surprise. Doyle's votes represented the largest gap between the first and second player in the ten counties we have polled so far.
The Top 30 in order of votes received in all positions was as follows:
1. Johnny Doyle
2. Martin Lynch
3. Daniel Flynn
4. Dermot Earley
5. Glenn Ryan
6. Christy Byrne
7. Anthony Rainbow
8. Tadgh Fennin
9. Niall Buckley
10. Emmet Bolton
11. Brian Lacey
12. Peter Kelly
13. Michael Foley
14. Declan Kerrigan
15. James Kavanagh
16. Eddie McCormack
17. Eamonn Callaghan
18. Davy Dalton
19. Ronan Sweeney
20. Paul Cribbin
21. Enda Murphy
T22. Kevin Feely
T22. Karl O'Dwyer
24. John Finn
T25. Willie McCreery
T25. Mark Donnellan
27. Eoghan O'Flaherty
28. Ollie Lyons
29. Alan Smith
30. Sos Dowling
