Thanks guys, have already mapped out the UV's, my main problem was and still is saving the selections in Maya. Quick selection sets placed on the shelf do not remember what they represent upon re-opening the file. Tried it a million times on different meshes, could be a bug, who knows. I personally wish to have inverse selections and tag capabilities on the selection front so as to save massive amounts of time on complicated meshes.
The reason I was choosing faces was to see where they correspond on the UV map as the way I'd laid them out has turned out to be not-so-obvious to recognise which is which..