An epic challenge awaits to select the 2022 PwC All-Stars teams

After half a century of All-Stars teams, the one constant has been the devilishly difficult challenge faced by the selection committee each year. It is always a head scratcher, a perennial debate.

The bar is set incredibly high. Fortitude and bravery, skill and guile are all prerequisites to simply make the 45-man list of nominees in football and hurling.

To make the eventual XVs and to finally join the pantheon of greats, or in some cases add another precious All-Star award to a treasured collection, a vital X-Factor is required. A sprinkling of stardust. Only the greats have it and 30 of them will be immortalised on Friday, October 28 when the 2022 PwC All-Stars are honoured in Dublin's Convention Centre.

Your challenge with the football selection begins with the goalkeeper and presents an immediate conundrum - do you go for style or substance?

Armagh's Ethan Rafferty, the very prototype of a modern day goalkeeper with his sallying bursts up the pitch and clever support runs, is undoubtedly the stylist. Kerry's Shane Ryan and Dublin's Evan Comerford the more traditional netminders.

Rafferty touched the ball over 80 times in open play throughout the Championship, Ryan just 18. Mind you, Ryan walked away with an All-Ireland medal and only conceded a goal all summer. But was he tested as much as Rafferty? Like Kerry and Ryan, Comerford and Dublin breezed through their provincial championship too. Rafferty certainly had the tougher journey - and scored two points along the way.

It doesn't get any easier with the defensive selections. Like the nominees for the forwards, there are 18 options but only six places on the team.

This is where Derry's first possibility of an All-Star since Kevin McCloy and Paddy Bradley made the 2007