No winners yet in complex Cork endgame

SIDELINE CUT:The wider GAA world can only look on aghast as Cork hurling's civil war continues in full spate

IN KILKENNY, on some quiet evening in November, the county's GAA officers will meet and Brian Cody will be reappointed as manager of the county hurling team. The minutes will be taken, congratulations made, the ledgers will be balanced and placed in a dusty filing cabinet and the office doors will be locked. These days, Kilkenny seems like an independent entity when it comes to Gaelic games, a Republic of Calm while across the land, mutiny rages.

In Kilkenny, the elected officers go about their business quietly and judiciously and its marquee team, the senior hurlers, will winter well and reflect on another season of burnished splendour. Then, in January, they will come together to renew their unspoken ambition to leave their names all over the record books - to leave an indelible confirmation they are among the best, if not the very best team ever. Team and individual firsts are within the grasp of this Kilkenny team now. And as internal division and recrimination convulses at least two of their putative All-Ireland rivals, the main task for Kilkenny is to keep on keeping on.

Even as their heads are addled with the latest civil war between the administrative and athletic representatives of Cork GAA, everyone must be aware every passing day of blame and stubbornness and ill-feeling and, one supposes, something close to loathing between the key members of the Cork dressingroom and the county board, seriously diminishes the Rebels' chances of matching Kilkenny next summer. Three years ago, when Kilkenny stopped the Cork three-in-a-row bid dead in its tracks, few could have guessed that what looked like a tight and cagey rivalry would take such radically divergent routes.

Since that last September meeting, Kilkenny have not so much sought to defeat other counties as they have tried to chase down the absolute limits of their potential, remorselessly hunting the perfect game with a level of total and collective concentration that has been frightening for other teams to behold. Cork, meantime, have been able only to summon flickering inspiration and they have, like all counties, fallen back into the crowd chasing Kilkenny. And in that period, they have become as famous for their unhappiness as for their hurling. Even Irish people with absolutely zero interest in the GAA have come to know the Cork hurlers as a perpetually aggrieved minority group, forever harping on about rights that are, to the vast majority, much too obscure and uninteresting to understand, let alone care about.

The GAA mindset changes slowly. Deep down, there is a large constituency that wants the brightest hurling stars to shut up and play. And this attitude is not simply confined to the fabled caricature of the association - the grey man in Sunday suit and pioneer pin - but also to the young following the GAA has drawn over the last 15 years. Advertising and marketing has helped to reimagine the Gaelic Games "look" as expansive and hip and modern but the inherent respect for the traditional system of the association remains wedded to the ways of the 20th century. One manager and 15 players - "uno duce, uno voce" in PJ Mara's immortal phrase.

More and more, the GAA manager is beginning to look like a vulnerable and isolated figure when power struggles erupt between dressingrooms and county administrators. In the midst of the current Cork maelstrom, it has scarcely been mentioned that Tom Walsh, Fermanagh's hurling manager, quit after he alleged he was abused by several of his own players following an Ulster club match. He is just the latest manager to depart in dark circumstances.

Even as the long reigns of Brian Cody and Tyrone's Mickey Harte substantiate the belief that the manager's importance is paramount, there is also a growing sense managers are regarded as disposable commodities.

The Cork hurlers have been in this place before. They must have realised at the outset they were not going to win much public sympathy in their latest stance. They probably knew that regardless of the complexities of their dissatisfaction with the managerial appointment process, it would appear to outsiders as though a series of heavyweight Cork hurling stars were ganging up to get rid of Gerald McCarthy, a likeable man with a long and impeccable sports career.

McCarthy's hurt and annoyance has been clear and the players' deepening frustration and their sense of absolute clarity of purpose - to echo another Cork man, they believe their consciences are clear - means they must be believed when they claim they are ready to walk away from the senior team. For the Cork hurlers, it is simple. This group have always been about the very quality Kilkenny have been rightly lauded for - the pursuit of excellence. The believe there is no point playing at all unless the preparation and the attention to detail are second to none. In their drive for perfection, the Cork hurlers have driven themselves to the point of distraction. And Gerald McCarthy, as stubborn as any top-class sportsman, has decided he won't be told when his time is up by any player.

Across the land, people see John Gardiner appearing on Prime Time and Another Bloody Cork GAA Row looks as though it has been pitched into the dimensions of conflict in the Middle East or Ireland's sinking health service - actual life or death issues. Across the land, the Gaels watch and they grow uncomfortable and they decide the Cork hurling crowd are too big for their boots; that they need to be taught some manners. Anyone with an ounce of empathy will sympathise with the lonely, impossible place that Gerald McCarthy finds himself now. And yet anyone who has spent any time with the Cork hurlers at the centre of this dispute will know bullying is alien to their psyche. The hurling life of Donal Óg Cusack is strewn with garlands and brickbats - often thrown from the same hands. The Cloyne man has a belief system that holds dear both the traditional reverence for the parish and home place along with an unapologetic belief in the advancement of player's rights. He is often vilified and can sometimes be his own worst enemy. But you only have to spend an hour in Cusack's company to understand he is burningly sincere and passionate about what he feels to be right - regardless of the tide of public opinion.

Former Wexford manager Liam Griffin posed the question that captures what most people ultimately care about: who wants to see a shadow Cork team turning out against Tipperary next summer? The absence of Cork would greatly diminish the championship.

But the measured silence of the Cork County Board has been significant. Nobody is going to call time on Frank Murphy but Frank Murphy. It is hard to see any quick resolution this time because nobody is going to blink. Up to now, there have always been 11th hour peace deals and normal business has been resumed. This time, the respective moods seem darker.

This dispute looks like the endgame of a deep and complex power struggle that has been rumbling on in the background since that groundbreaking strike year of 2002. Nobody should doubt the Cork players' resolve. It may all end in exile for the brightest and best Cork hurlers of their generation.

And in Kilkenny, hurling people will shake their heads in wonder. And vow that the same thing will never happen to them.