McCarthy admits he does not have backing of Cork hurlers

[orangeman]

Can anyone post the article in yesterday's Independent ?? - a very well written article which gives fair and equal treatment to both sides.

[Reillers]

See the reason why Cork came out all guns all blazzing after Donal Og got sent off is because he has taken so much abuse for them over the years. He's the one with the head above the parapet. He had done so much for them in the past. He's been the hate figure, they all shared the same oppinion but he was the one who gets the crap from the media from fans up and down the country. He's been the hate figure on behalf of the team, despite the fact that everyone else had shared his opinion.

So not only is it out line what you said, it's not true. No one tries to sway anyone on this team, it's all their own oppinion, secret ballads..etc. Donal Og is not at the head of this. He's involved but no more so then the twins, Sean Og, Sully..etc.
He's poisoned the game..that's just insulting to someone who's given so much to the game. So much to his club, and county and hurling in general.
He's got nothing to do with how millitant the players are. They all think for themselves, you're naive if you think that it's Donal Og leading them by a string. They do things right.
They are putting no pressure on the kids in the squad, but lets just say that the younger players have been getting phone calls suggesting that they should go back.

He's not influencing anyone the sooner people realise that then maybe the sooner people will except that it's not just one person. It's a squad of 30 players.

don't get me wrong here. I'm fully aware of the commitment Donal Og has given to Cork hurling on the field, and I think its nothing less than admirable. And whether hes a hate figure or not has nothing whatsoever to do with that. If indeed Donal Og is a hate figure (your words, not mine), its because of off-field antics. Its because of his obvious militancy (and don't make me laugh with this players can think for themselves rubbish - none of this would be going on but for him), its because of his wanting to make GAA a professional sport (hence my 'poison the game' comments which were from out of line in my opinion), its because of things like socks-down during the pre-match parade antics. I read the story about Mark Landers calling for Cusack to step down. Mark Landers is a man I'd have whole-hearted respect for. He was at the helm for the first players strike way back when, and how even hes calling for Cusack to cop himself on.

Donal Og not influencing people? Thats the most ludicrous thing I've heard in ages.

But that all aside, heres a suggestion to resolve all this. Let the players do what they want. If Cork can't field in next year's championship, so be it, let them give a walkover. Lets see how public opinion in Cork is then, and lets see the impact it has. The actions of the Cork players can only succeed if they have public sympathies. One feels that they don't have them at the minute and whatever sympathies they do have are quickly dwindling. Cork are a proud GAA county. Cork is full of people steeped in the traditions of the organisation. Cork people know what makes the GAA unique. Cork people know what can harm those values and hence the organisation. Cork people aren't stupid and know that certain players (spearheaded by one in particular) are seeking to undermine those values.

What would the great Christy Ring and Jack Lynch think of this one wonders?

And I commend Nicky Brennan for saying the GAA will stay out of this. Its up to Cork to sort this themselves once and for all. A satisfactory resolution can't but involve the stepping down of both players and county board officials. For the sake of all the decent GAA people in Cork, I hope that happens sooner rather than later.

Besides what the media SPECULATES on. How do you know?? About Donal Og, a subject some seem vastly knowledgeable on untill I ask them for proof.

[Reillers]

Can anyone post the article in yesterday's Independent ?? - a very well written article which gives fair and equal treatment to both sides.

What one..This one??

Rebels go to war

ON the morning of Cork's All-Ireland semi-final with Kilkenny last August, Sean Og O hAilpin spoke of the warm bond he had struck up with Gerald McCarthy, a manager he said had to earn respect.

O hAiplin reflected on Cork's two magnificent wins in Thurles against Galway and Clare and how he felt compelled to shake his manager's hand at the end of both. He wasn't for hugging his Cork managers, but, for only the second time, Gerald Mac was the recipient of one.

"Gerald had to convince me he was right for us but he has," noted O hAilpin.

Real peace and harmony, it seemed, had broken out when the team's most iconic figure could speak in such affectionate, glowing terms about a manager he didn't know if he could trust at the outset. A manager that had looked at odds with his players, on so many tactical and compatible points earlier in the summer when they lost to Tipperary in the Munster championship, had made it to the other side. He had won them over.

No one ever thought it could happen but the words were in print for all to see. They clearly masked a hidden truth, however. Two and a half months later, O hAilpin was one of that 10-man delegation who met last Tuesday morning to prise Gerald McCarthy's resignation from him, a resignation that didn't come, and is even less likely too as McCarthy dug his heels in deeper yesterday.

What came over O hAilpin, what moved him to speak those words if, just a few weeks later, he was calling for the same man's head? One defeat to arguably the best team hurling has ever seen?

The belief that McCarthy would walk away when his two-year term was up was commonplace in Cork and beyond and O hAilpin was clearly hedging on that.

Having lost five and drawn one of the five championship games, McCarthy could understandably have been overlooked, having completed his two-year term for performance-related reasons. It would have been a practical decision, based on performance alone.

John Meyler in Wexford had, after all, been jettisoned for one defeat less across the same period of time. But with the players loading the gun for the Board, Meyler's tenure ended swiftly.

In Cork, there is a much different dynamic and much more than just McCarthy's methods of preparing and coaching at the core of what has evolved.

The peace negotiated twice to end conflict this decade has clearly been fractured. No one ever thought that the document, prepared by the Labour Relations Committee chairman Kieran Mulvey to diffuse last winter's strike, was going to stick forever. It was a quick-fix solution in a time of desperate need ... nothing more than an end to a process of which everyone had grown weary.

When the Board entered that binding arbitration agreement last February, there was certainty in their own minds that Kieran Mulvey would have to spare Teddy Holland. He didn't.

But the concession that players had agreed not to strike again was something to store for the future and manipulate at the right moment. No one could ever have expected that moment to arrive so soon however.

So where to now? The Board wilted quickly to end the first war, they were much more obstinate the second time around. Now, it seems, they are ready for the long haul, the ultimate sacrifice of having no Cork senior hurling team in action in 2009.

The Board may have misjudged the appetite of the hurlers for a third strike and were clearly banking on the terms of the arbitration document holding so young players would feel free to play without the stigma of letting down the older war veterans.

That is not the case now and a conflict to the bitter end is sure to ensue, much longer and far more protracted than anything before.

Shredded

There is no more room for manoeuvre and little hope of compromise. Mulvey will surely look at his shredded document on the ground and conclude that there is no point in even considering a return. Privately and publicly, Croke Park has no intention, this time, of releasing the rescue squads for deployment on Leeside.

They got badly burned last year after letting Cork off the hook on league participation and won't want a repeat. They'll choose to ignore it, and not even the arrival of a Cork GAA president, Christy Cooney, next April will change that. This time they will be left to their own devices without the parachute of third parties.

Perhaps it's right that it has come to this. Perhaps the skies really have to empty before they can clear.

It seems real blood will have to spill and heads will have to roll at one end or the other to end this for once and for all.

The Board will feel strongly it can't back down and sacrifice a second manager to the wishes of players within a year, not after sanctioning McCarthy for another year, first by 5-2 among the appointments committee and then by 88-6 on the floor of a full County Board meeting.

That only six delegates opposed a management team that lost five out of 12 championship games reflects the loyalty of the Board to the top table. That's not going to change.

The only quick-fix solution is for McCarthy to walk away, just as it was for Teddy Holland. But Gerald McCarthy is a much different entity in his native city and surrounds. As a revered figure of Cork's past, with five All-Ireland medals, no one will want to see him walk the plank ignominiously, regardless of poor results. That would be unpalatable.

The players, clearly, are not for turning now. And neither, it seems, is McCarthy. He was even more trenchant yesterday and is now taking up a cause for future Cork managers just as much as the players are taking their cause for future Cork players.

He has dug his heels in as deep on a fundamental issue as they have now.

He'll seek players to play for Cork but he won't get many. If that means a Cork hurling team taking a year out of all competitive activity or a skeleton team suffering humiliation in league and championship then it may be the best course of action for all involved, the Board, the players and the Cork public, who should be the ultimate arbitrators in this.

Who would the public back then if a ball had not been struck in earnest on a championship or league field by a Cork hurler?

The players who refused to play, the manager who refused to yield or the Board officers who did not do everything in their power to ensure that the best players were on the field.

In a radio interview on Tuesday night, the 1999 All-Ireland winning captain, Mark Landers, one of the chief protagonists in the original 2002 dispute, offered an explosive solution to the latest stand-off by suggesting that both the long-serving secretary Frank Murphy and goalkeeper Donal Og Cusack, arguably the two central characters in all the conflict between Board and hurlers over the last six years, should stand down.

It was an aspirational solution that neither side will allow to happen, but the end game to all of this, six years on, is that one or other has to prevail, once and for all, to decide the future of how Cork goes about the business of organising their senior inter-county teams.

This time there won't be compromise. There can't be.

[theskull1]

Always jumps in the minute somebody critiques DO'C's credentials. Reillers are you Donal Og?

You may as well be.

People from a distance can see that his militancy and GPA ambitions are not good for the game, independant of all the other good things I'm sure he does. You will never have that perspective, but many accross the country do hold a very negative opinion of him.

[Reillers]

But that's just it, it's an OPINION. No fact. There never is or was.

[theskull1]

Reillers. If you are going to post newpaper articles which are so aligned to the players perpsective (for obvious reasons) then don't complain to everybody else about their arguments having "No Fact". Come on

[bottlethrower7]

Besides what the media SPECULATES on. How do you know?? About Donal Og, a subject some seem vastly knowledgeable on untill I ask them for proof.

maybe its something to do with his position in the GPA, an organisation that the current Cork panel are very immersed in right now.

It would almost be tantamount to dereliction of duty were he not to 'advise' the players.

[The GAA]

Besides what the media SPECULATES on. How do you know?? About Donal Og, a subject some seem vastly knowledgeable on untill I ask them for proof.

maybe its something to do with his position in the GPA, an organisation that the current Cork panel are very immersed in right now.

It would almost be tantamount to dereliction of duty were he not to 'advise' the players.

Should any player voted into a position of responsibility with the GPA automatically retire from playing?

[Reillers]

I don't know, I think there would be more support for Gerald if he was a good manager, but he's not.
The sooner this is solved. Or stated for that matter. If whatver was going to happen happened then we could get on with things. I wish the CCB came out and said what they'll do.
Because at least then we'll know, at least then we can start building for next season or rebuilding for the future.

I just, the thought of Gerald Mac for another 2 seasons is too much to take, he's a bad manager and everyone can see that..except, apparently the CCB.

[turk]

Who do Cork want as manager?

[bottlethrower7]

Besides what the media SPECULATES on. How do you know?? About Donal Og, a subject some seem vastly knowledgeable on untill I ask them for proof.

maybe its something to do with his position in the GPA, an organisation that the current Cork panel are very immersed in right now.

It would almost be tantamount to dereliction of duty were he not to 'advise' the players.

Should any player voted into a position of responsibility with the GPA automatically retire from playing?

personally I think people in positions of responsibility in the GPA should not be current players. Ideally they would have never have played. That way they could never be accused of chasing personal agendas (or almost never).

[The GAA]

All bar cusack are former players i think - dj, dessie, ryan, etc. how could former players be accused of having a personal agenda?

[EddieMerx]

Is it a case of the Cork players just can't accept that Kilkenny are just better than them and it's not down to the manager why they haven't been at the races for the last 3 years

[Reillers]

Oh my God..yes, yes that's what it's all about.

This is bigger then bloody Kilkenny, this is the team wanting to have a better chance at competing for an AI. Who's better will be settled on the pitch but they just want the best chance of going at it.
But it's bigger then that, the board is killing hurling in Cork, and will continue to do so until someone, the players apparently, stand up to them.

[bottlethrower7]

All bar cusack are former players i think - dj, dessie, ryan, etc. how could former players be accused of having a personal agenda?

read my post properly. I said if they were former (emphasise 'former') that they couldn't be accused of having a personal agenda.

or don't. Whatever you want.