McCarthy admits he does not have backing of Cork hurlers

[orangeman]

He isn't saying it's all the boards fault he is saying that they are a big part of the problem, which they are. Even with the best structures in the world and your CB supporting you 100%, a team amy not win the AI but when your CB are trying to undermine the team then you have little or no chance.

Nowhere does he say that the hurlers are no longer up to the task !

[Zulu]

What? In your opinion they are not, I'm sure he holds a different view, what's he meant to say...."The CB are undermining our efforts at every turn, Gerald didn't gel with us and we weren't happy with his coaching but at the end of the day that doesn't really matter because we're no longer up to it anyway". Cork may or may not be able to beat Kilkenny for the next few years but they certainly have a squad capable of beating anyone else. If they have the right structures they have a squad good enough to win AI's and are as well capable of beating Kilkenny as anyone.

Anyway that isn't the point, the Cavan footballers aren't good enough to win an AI at the moment but it is still the CB responsibility to provide them with the best support structures possible. That's what is missing in Cork and that is the point.

[Zulu]

The blame for what?

[Reillers]

Cork ace hits out at Board


By DAMIAN LAWLOR

Sunday November 16 2008


CORK hurler Tom Kenny says repeated attempts to split the squad are futile and called on the county board to "sort out a mess they created". And the midfielder has also claimed that the players were 'hoodwinked' by the board.

Following a week in which the two sides in this increasingly bitter dispute seemed to move even further apart, particularly in the wake of the very public exchange between Gerald McCarthy and Seán óg ó hAilpín, Kenny says the players remain united.

"We told the board the players had no confidence in Gerald. For some reason they didn't believe us and went ahead to appoint him anyway. Are they interested in getting their power back or winning All-Ireland titles? On top of that, scarcely a day has gone by when they, or others, have not tried to make out in the media that we are no longer together as a group. They're wasting their time on that one."

The 27-year-old has "nearly accepted" not playing for Cork again if it means youngsters coming through can play under the proper structures and conditions.

"Last year things just weren't right. I didn't enjoy training at all; people say we were close to beating Kilkenny but I find that peculiar. Truth is we were lucky they didn't beat us by more. In two years we've gone from being the best team in Ireland to the third best team in Munster.

"I want to win championships every year but you must believe in what you're doing. We couldn't say that this season and we told the board as much. They ignored us and they've since made it out to be a battle between Gerald and us. The truth is they are the ones we blame. In my opinion, they hoodwinked us."

Kenny, who also played football for Cork, believes their football counterparts should not get involved in this dispute.

"They're happy with Conor Counihan and he's the right man for them. We've heard rumours that Conor will walk if they get involved in this so maybe the footballers should stay where they are but we haven't spoken to them. At some stage we'll have a meeting with them and if, after that, they decide not to get involved there will be no hard feelings on my part anyway."

If the hurlers end up going it alone, Kenny insists they will see it out to the end -- despite reports that the support of younger panel members is wavering.

"A lot has been done to try and fracture the group, certainly it's been in the media almost every day that the younger lads are not in and being bullied by the older ones.

"Not true. There's no doubt that young fellows are worried, like I was in 2002, but they understand the system to reappoint Gerald was not carried out in the proper manner. They know the last two years have not been conducive to us winning and they saw the previous four years where there was no hassle and it was all done properly."

Continued on Page 11

- DAMIAN LAWLOR

Now tell me OM, what is wrong with that? Wher does he say that it's all the CB's fault. Everything he says is bang on, and it's what others like the lads on The Last Word, Sean Og..etc. have been saying.
Maybe if it's said enough times ye'll start listening. And what do you expect, Kenny to turn around and say we're not up to it. They know full well that they take some of the blame, they do.
They're hardly going to turn around undermine the team like that.

[Reillers]

I have to say, for all the doom and gloom around Cork at the minute with the players.
The game today, the U21 county final replay, Glens beat Duhallow in a smashing game. Words can't even begin to describe it.
The MOTM, Pat Horgan. 3-08.
I don't care what happens, I don't care what it takes, to get him playing for Cork again, because my God, he was phenomenal. It sickens me, it really does to think that the board is standing in his way, a bunch of hurt egos on a personal vendetta. What the players are doing today is for the future of the kids like Pat Horgan. I hope we'll see him with Cork again, because he was out of this world.
Aidan Walsh for Duhallow as well, he was brilliant. Some absolutely oustanding games from some of the lads. Real, REAL potential there.

[orangeman]

I have to say, for all the doom and gloom around Cork at the minute with the players.
The game today, the U21 county final replay, Glens beat Duhallow in a smashing game. Words can't even begin to describe it.
The MOTM, Pat Horgan. 3-08.
I don't care what happens, I don't care what it takes, to get him playing for Cork again, because my God, he was phenomenal. It sickens me, it really does to think that the board is standing in his way, a bunch of hurt egos on a personal vendetta. What the players are doing today is for the future of the kids like Pat Horgan. I hope we'll see him with Cork again, because he was out of this world.
Aidan Walsh for Duhallow as well, he was brilliant. Some absolutely oustanding games from some of the lads. Real, REAL potential there.

Had he a run out with Cork before ?

[Reillers]

Are you serious??..You said you know a fair bit about Cork hurling and how it's run.

He was a sub against Tipp, and came on as a sub against Galway and played against Clare instead of Timmy Mac who was injured. He played against Dublin as well I think, and in the League. Really promising player.
Came on against Galway, you think it would be overwhelming for the lad, but no, not at all, you swear he'd been on the team for years. Confidence has never been a problem with Cork teams, it's bred into them. He looked like he'd been part of the team for many years. The team is so good like that, they're a family basically, they make the new kids feel like they've been around for years, that basically means that there's very little transition for the kids, which makes it so much easier.
He was part of the team that beat Galway. That was some day.
That game, from all of the Cork lads.."It was simply inspiring stuff that left Cork supporters shaking with pride at the final whistle."
People question if the Cork players care, but like I challenge anyone to watch the Galway Cork game and tell me that they don't care. Donal Og called for them, it was time to see who cared, for all to give some and some to give all..and they did.

Anyway..

He'll be some serious player given the chance, as will Naughton, and Sully Og has so much potential as well. There's a fair chunk of them who could be real stars. Not to mention guys who aren't on the team who should be..but aren't, and why, because of bloody politics.

[orangeman]

Are you serious??..You said you know a fair bit about Cork hurling and how it's run.

He was a sub against Tipp, and came on as a sub against Galway and played against Clare instead of Timmy Mac who was injured. He played against Dublin as well I think, and in the League. Really promising player.
Came on against Galway, you think it would be overwhelming for the lad, but no, not at all, you swear he'd been on the team for years. Confidence has never been a problem with Cork teams, it's bred into them. He looked like he'd been part of the team for many years. The team is so good like that, they're a family basically, they make the new kids feel like they've been around for years, that basically means that there's very little transition for the kids, which makes it so much easier.
He was part of the team that beat Galway. That was some day.
That game, from all of the Cork lads.."It was simply inspiring stuff that left Cork supporters shaking with pride at the final whistle."
People question if the Cork players care, but like I challenge anyone to watch the Galway Cork game and tell me that they don't care. Donal Og called for them, it was time to see who cared, for all to give some and some to give all..and they did.

Anyway..

He'll be some serious player given the chance, as will Naughton, and Sully Og has so much potential as well. There's a fair chunk of them who could be real stars. Not to mention guys who aren't on the team who should be..but aren't, and why, because of bloody politics.

Politics ?

Player politics or player power ?


PLAYER POWER -

[The GAA]

Jaysus OM but you're an embarrassment

[The GAA]

TOM HUMPHRIESLOCKER ROOM: If the Cork players feel under attack from their county board yet again, surely it's time for the GAA to look at that county board rather than stand idly by

WHAT A grisly business to have to watch. In Cork right now the greatest, most beautiful, game in the world is being dragged into disrepute. Great icons of hurling are slashing each other like Hutus and Tutsis while a mendacious county board gambles on either the players or the public becoming so fatigued with matters that something breaks.

To paraphrase Tommie Gorman, what about the children?

The failure here is not Gerald's or Seán Óg. It is a failure of administration. A complete and utter failure of men in suits to live up to their responsibilities to the game.

Croke Park, by saying it will remain neutral and permit Cork to settle its own civil war, is in effect siding with a county board which insists on lumbering players with a manager for whom the help of a facilitator was needed to get through last season. It is siding with a county board who took a process agreed on in arbitration earlier this year and used it as a weapon in an ongoing vendetta against its own players.

For the GAA to say it will not get involved is to ignore the fact that it is integrally involved. Hurling is held in trust by the GAA as a cultural and sporting gift to be passed on. If the game is being traduced and sullied the buck stops at Croke Park's door. If players who have illuminated so many Sundays, players who everyone would concede have brought new standards of dedication and application to their preparation, feel yet again they are under attack from their county board surely it is time to look at that county board rather that stand by and watch.

It is a pity too that the great hurling academy that is St Colman's of Fermoy should be dragged into the dirt with the duplicitous pretence that next week's game is anything other than a barefaced flouting of the GAA's new rules on intercounty activity at this time of the year. The rules are being flouted in order to manufacture a grisly showdown with players.

What county board would ask players, any group of players, to take to the pitch in such circumstances? The St Colman's game will bring nothing but long-term damage to hurling in Cork. A grim irony given that the fixture was intended to celebrate the school's rich contribution to the game.

What county board would put players in that position? Well, try a county board facing its third major upheaval in six years, a board which seems unable to command the trust of the people it works for. There is some misapprehension in county board circles when the players are accused of turning Cork hurling into an industrial relations battleground. The players don't work for the county board. The county board works for the players and the Cork GAA public and for the games.

Now while we are diverted by examining the conflicting claims of the players and Gerald McCarthy we should instead be examining the effectiveness of the Cork County Board, a body whose pettiness and vindictiveness has brought embarrassment after embarrassment to the GAA in Cork, from the assassination attempts on Billy Morgan, to the refusal to play out extra-time in a major fixture because a train needed catching, to the attempts to get a major game postponed because of a tall ships' race, to the crumbling state of Páirc Uí Chaoimh, to the endless unrest among players.

This is a flagship county of the GAA. All of us in the GAA expect more and deserve better.

Now in the present business of the Cork hurlers, the Cork County Board either knew of the difficulties which both players and management had been having with each other and should therefore, for the benefit of Cork hurling (which is the only thing that matters here in the long term) have said that it was time for change. This, after all, was a season when for the first time Kilkenny crept ahead of Cork in the record books.

It ended up too being a season when Cork were being held up to the light as a specimen study in chaos and Kilkenny were lauded as the model for all others to follow. Now the Cork County Board, knowing of the strife and unease of the last two years and knowing that in doing so it was selling out Cork's history and Cork's chances of burnishing that history, opted to ram the same arrangement down everybody's throats again.

The alternative scenario which is equally inconceivable is the Cork County Board knew nothing of what was going on within the set-up of its own county hurling team for the last two years, in which case it was unfit to preside over hurling in the county at all.

It is very fine for the Cork County Board to hang back in the shadows and let a decent man like Gerald McCarthy suffer the hurt and embarrassment he is so clearly experiencing, but the rest of us shouldn't be so diverted by the Punch and Judy show that we forget about the impresarios staging the entire thing.

It is very fine for us to watch the night skies illuminated by the trace glow of bullets and rockets fired at Seán Óg Ó hAilpín for standing up for his comrades but in doing so we miss the point. When Gerald McCarthy, in pure frustration, cites poor compliance with various elements of his training structure is there not a single figure of substance within Cork GAA who will step in and say that there must be something seriously wrong here. The Cork players, as motivated a group as can be found within the game, clearly felt what they were failing to comply with was, as Seán Óg suggested last week, an enterprise that could have been dreamed up by a Disney character.

Maybe they were right. Maybe they were wrong. But they didn't believe. And if you can't make your players believe, that is a failure of management which sadly is terminal.

Surely when the compliance rate among such a driven bunch of players is as low as Gerald McCarthy made out in Saturday's papers, with poor attendance at recovery sessions and a low response rate to nutritionists' questionnaires, then that is further evidence of why a facilitator was needed last summer. Whatever connection a manager needs to make with a group of players just wasn't made.

Both Gerald and the players got through their two years together. This summer, when Cork exited the championship, Gerald, more aware that anybody else of the problems which had existed between himself and his panel, had the chance to walk away with his considerable reputation intact.

The Cork County Board needed (if it was as ignorant of events as it seems) to take soundings amongst its players as to how things stood, then it needed to say gently to Gerald McCarthy that a perfect time had arrived to step down quietly with the thanks of everyone involved.

Cork had been beaten by Kilkenny but had succumbed only after a heroic struggle which had encompassed two epic comebacks in their previous championship games. The chance was there for everybody to thank Gerald for his considerable service and to move on.

Their failure to do that was the last in a long line of failings by the guardians of the game by the Lee. Croke Park can stand by and watch great men sunder each other in frustration or it can tackle the root of the problem for once and for all. For the sake of the game we all hold in trust for the next generation there can only be one course of action.

© 2008 The Irish Times

[orangeman]

Jaysus OM but you're an embarrassment

Don't put me in the same category as the players please ! 

[zoyler]

My GOD !!!!! - Tom Humphrets takes the side of the players and blames the CB for everything!!! What a surprise - A journalist who depends on players for his interviews and quotes takes the side of the players. Yea sure.

[orangeman]

TOM HUMPHRIESLOCKER ROOM: If the Cork players feel under attack from their county board yet again, surely it's time for the GAA to look at that county board rather than stand idly by

WHAT A grisly business to have to watch. In Cork right now the greatest, most beautiful, game in the world is being dragged into disrepute. Great icons of hurling are slashing each other like Hutus and Tutsis while a mendacious county board gambles on either the players or the public becoming so fatigued with matters that something breaks.

To paraphrase Tommie Gorman, what about the children?

The failure here is not Gerald's or Seán Óg. It is a failure of administration. A complete and utter failure of men in suits to live up to their responsibilities to the game.
Croke Park, by saying it will remain neutral and permit Cork to settle its own civil war, is in effect siding with a county board which insists on lumbering players with a manager for whom the help of a facilitator was needed to get through last season. It is siding with a county board who took a process agreed on in arbitration earlier this year and used it as a weapon in an ongoing vendetta against its own players.

For the GAA to say it will not get involved is to ignore the fact that it is integrally involved. Hurling is held in trust by the GAA as a cultural and sporting gift to be passed on. If the game is being traduced and sullied the buck stops at Croke Park's door. If players who have illuminated so many Sundays, players who everyone would concede have brought new standards of dedication and application to their preparation, feel yet again they are under attack from their county board surely it is time to look at that county board rather that stand by and watch.

It is a pity too that the great hurling academy that is St Colman's of Fermoy should be dragged into the dirt with the duplicitous pretence that next week's game is anything other than a barefaced flouting of the GAA's new rules on intercounty activity at this time of the year. The rules are being flouted in order to manufacture a grisly showdown with players.

What county board would ask players, any group of players, to take to the pitch in such circumstances? The St Colman's game will bring nothing but long-term damage to hurling in Cork. A grim irony given that the fixture was intended to celebrate the school's rich contribution to the game.

What county board would put players in that position? Well, try a county board facing its third major upheaval in six years, a board which seems unable to command the trust of the people it works for. There is some misapprehension in county board circles when the players are accused of turning Cork hurling into an industrial relations battleground. The players don't work for the county board. The county board works for the players and the Cork GAA public and for the games.

Now while we are diverted by examining the conflicting claims of the players and Gerald McCarthy we should instead be examining the effectiveness of the Cork County Board, a body whose pettiness and vindictiveness has brought embarrassment after embarrassment to the GAA in Cork, from the assassination attempts on Billy Morgan, to the refusal to play out extra-time in a major fixture because a train needed catching, to the attempts to get a major game postponed because of a tall ships' race, to the crumbling state of Páirc Uí Chaoimh, to the endless unrest among players.

This is a flagship county of the GAA. All of us in the GAA expect more and deserve better.

Now in the present business of the Cork hurlers, the Cork County Board either knew of the difficulties which both players and management had been having with each other and should therefore, for the benefit of Cork hurling (which is the only thing that matters here in the long term) have said that it was time for change. This, after all, was a season when for the first time Kilkenny crept ahead of Cork in the record books.

It ended up too being a season when Cork were being held up to the light as a specimen study in chaos and Kilkenny were lauded as the model for all others to follow. Now the Cork County Board, knowing of the strife and unease of the last two years and knowing that in doing so it was selling out Cork's history and Cork's chances of burnishing that history, opted to ram the same arrangement down everybody's throats again.

The alternative scenario which is equally inconceivable is the Cork County Board knew nothing of what was going on within the set-up of its own county hurling team for the last two years, in which case it was unfit to preside over hurling in the county at all.

It is very fine for the Cork County Board to hang back in the shadows and let a decent man like Gerald McCarthy suffer the hurt and embarrassment he is so clearly experiencing, but the rest of us shouldn't be so diverted by the Punch and Judy show that we forget about the impresarios staging the entire thing.

It is very fine for us to watch the night skies illuminated by the trace glow of bullets and rockets fired at Seán Óg Ó hAilpín for standing up for his comrades but in doing so we miss the point. When Gerald McCarthy, in pure frustration, cites poor compliance with various elements of his training structure is there not a single figure of substance within Cork GAA who will step in and say that there must be something seriously wrong here. The Cork players, as motivated a group as can be found within the game, clearly felt what they were failing to comply with was, as Seán Óg suggested last week, an enterprise that could have been dreamed up by a Disney character.

Maybe they were right. Maybe they were wrong. But they didn't believe. And if you can't make your players believe, that is a failure of management which sadly is terminal.

Surely when the compliance rate among such a driven bunch of players is as low as Gerald McCarthy made out in Saturday's papers, with poor attendance at recovery sessions and a low response rate to nutritionists' questionnaires, then that is further evidence of why a facilitator was needed last summer. Whatever connection a manager needs to make with a group of players just wasn't made.

Both Gerald and the players got through their two years together. This summer, when Cork exited the championship, Gerald, more aware that anybody else of the problems which had existed between himself and his panel, had the chance to walk away with his considerable reputation intact.

The Cork County Board needed (if it was as ignorant of events as it seems) to take soundings amongst its players as to how things stood, then it needed to say gently to Gerald McCarthy that a perfect time had arrived to step down quietly with the thanks of everyone involved.

Cork had been beaten by Kilkenny but had succumbed only after a heroic struggle which had encompassed two epic comebacks in their previous championship games. The chance was there for everybody to thank Gerald for his considerable service and to move on.

Their failure to do that was the last in a long line of failings by the guardians of the game by the Lee. Croke Park can stand by and watch great men sunder each other in frustration or it can tackle the root of the problem for once and for all. For the sake of the game we all hold in trust for the next generation there can only be one course of action.

© 2008 The Irish Times

If Tom believes what he is saying then why did Sean Og, Tom Kenny, Ben O'Connor etc come out so publicly and launch personal attacks on Gerald ?

The truth is that Tom Humphries doesn't believe that it has nothing to do with Gerald - this is simply a changer of tack on behalf of the players whose personal attacks on a hurling legend have backfired very badly on them. The public sympathy went with the manager so now it's time to turn attention away from Gerald ( for the above reason plus the fact that he has signalled his intention to stay on as manager no matter what happens ) and onto the county board to see if a media led campaign against Frank and Co. can reap more reward.

[Reillers]

Are you serious??..You said you know a fair bit about Cork hurling and how it's run.

He was a sub against Tipp, and came on as a sub against Galway and played against Clare instead of Timmy Mac who was injured. He played against Dublin as well I think, and in the League. Really promising player.
Came on against Galway, you think it would be overwhelming for the lad, but no, not at all, you swear he'd been on the team for years. Confidence has never been a problem with Cork teams, it's bred into them. He looked like he'd been part of the team for many years. The team is so good like that, they're a family basically, they make the new kids feel like they've been around for years, that basically means that there's very little transition for the kids, which makes it so much easier.
He was part of the team that beat Galway. That was some day.
That game, from all of the Cork lads.."It was simply inspiring stuff that left Cork supporters shaking with pride at the final whistle."
People question if the Cork players care, but like I challenge anyone to watch the Galway Cork game and tell me that they don't care. Donal Og called for them, it was time to see who cared, for all to give some and some to give all..and they did.

Anyway..

He'll be some serious player given the chance, as will Naughton, and Sully Og has so much potential as well. There's a fair chunk of them who could be real stars. Not to mention guys who aren't on the team who should be..but aren't, and why, because of bloody politics.

Politics ?

Player politics or player power ?


PLAYER POWER -

Neither nothing to do with the players.
You don't know what you're talking about. I thought you did for a while but then not so much any more.
It's got to do with politics of the selection of players. Players that should be picked but aren't. Nothing at all to do with the players..AT ALL.

[orangeman]

Are you serious??..You said you know a fair bit about Cork hurling and how it's run.

He was a sub against Tipp, and came on as a sub against Galway and played against Clare instead of Timmy Mac who was injured. He played against Dublin as well I think, and in the League. Really promising player.
Came on against Galway, you think it would be overwhelming for the lad, but no, not at all, you swear he'd been on the team for years. Confidence has never been a problem with Cork teams, it's bred into them. He looked like he'd been part of the team for many years. The team is so good like that, they're a family basically, they make the new kids feel like they've been around for years, that basically means that there's very little transition for the kids, which makes it so much easier.
He was part of the team that beat Galway. That was some day.
That game, from all of the Cork lads.."It was simply inspiring stuff that left Cork supporters shaking with pride at the final whistle."
People question if the Cork players care, but like I challenge anyone to watch the Galway Cork game and tell me that they don't care. Donal Og called for them, it was time to see who cared, for all to give some and some to give all..and they did.

Anyway..

He'll be some serious player given the chance, as will Naughton, and Sully Og has so much potential as well. There's a fair chunk of them who could be real stars. Not to mention guys who aren't on the team who should be..but aren't, and why, because of bloody politics.

Politics ?

Player politics or player power ?


PLAYER POWER -

Neither nothing to do with the players.
You don't know what you're talking about. I thought you did for a while but then not so much any more.
It's got to do with politics of the selection of players. Players that should be picked but aren't. Nothing at all to do with the players..AT ALL.

It's Monday ! And another change of tactics !


So it's nothing to do with the players - it's all to do with players that aren't being picked. Holy Jesus, what next ?