Thurles Three saga should end now

Sideline Cut:You cannot beat the hurling world when it comes to civil unrest. If the great Martin Luther King ever returned to this demoralised planet of ours, he might find fulfilment as the voice of morally battered hurlers everywhere. The great preacher would undoubtedly have liked the tenor of the statement released on Thursday night to the newsroom of De Paper by the Thurles Three. It was a jaw-dropping attack on the establishment.

It was unfortunate for the GAA that the latest disciplinary mess involved Donal Cusack, Seán Ó hAilpín and Diarmuid O'Sullivan, three of the most singular figures in contemporary Gaelic games. They kept their counsel through the labyrinthine process of punishment and discipline that followed those chaotic seconds of what, in retrospect, was little more than a bout of agricultural slow dancing between hurling men old enough to know better.

A fortnight ago, they sat together in tracksuits and peaked hats and anxiously sipped from water bottles as Cork and Waterford rediscovered that chemistry that has made their recent meetings nothing less than daylight firework displays.

Afterwards, the Cork coach Gerald McCarthy had a proper say for the first time, withering in his analysis of the events and contemptuous at the treatment of his players by officialdom. And now, the Cork hurlers who were instrumental in steering a rehabilitation of practices within their own county in an unprecedented show of player power, have come forward again, releasing a landmark statement that even calls the president of the association to book over the way the GAA handled the case.

Some of their statement is persuasive. Unsavoury as was the sight of grown men grappling with one another seconds after appearing on the field, there were a fatal few moments when those charged with supervising the afternoon lost control.

Tearing helter-skelter onto the field pumped up with pride and patriotism is a GAA tradition - counterproductive as it may well be when it comes to actually playing.

The teams should not have been allowed to take the field in Thurles at the same time. Why Cork emerged in tandem with the Clare team has yet to be explained. Even if both sides left the changing-rooms at the same time, there ought to have been officials ushering them safely through the tunnel.

Of course, it could be pointed out that two adults teams ought to be able to conduct themselves safely onto the field of play without resorting to Neanderthal exchanges of strength and willpower. But the GAA has long tolerated anarchic behaviour on its fields. Lads are always shaping, in football much more than in hurling. Football is frequently absurd, players shouldering, punching and trash-talking opponents throughout games.

In hurling at least there remains some modicum of respect between opponents. It was particularly ironic, therefore, that these Cork hurlers have become embroiled in the major disciplinary controversy of the summer. You don't have to love Cork to see their teams have always adhered to a squeaky-clean policy. That is not to say hard and even cynical men have not worn Cork hurling and football jerseys down the years. But generally, Cork teams allow the opposition to play football against them and to hurl against them. As the three players point out, their personal disciplinary records are exemplary.

It must pain the marketers in the GAA that Seán Óg Ó hAilpín has become a renegade in this particular row. The Na Piarsaigh man has been a poster boy, the ideal embodiment of the modern GAA hero, a dual player with a multiracial heritage, a Gaeilgeoir, personable, always a sportsman.

Cusack's role in the GPA may mean he is regarded as trouble within the hierarchy of the GAA. But whatever you might think of Cusack's stance on the advancement of player welfare, it seems he is operating out of principle. And it seems almost natural that if Cusack must take a fall, Diarmuid O'Sullivan will be there beside him. The pair have hurled together as kids in Cloyne and made it with Cork together. You don't get Starsky without Hutch.

National sympathy for the Cork trio will be limited, though. As a corpus, the Cork GAA is not exactly associated with victimhood. GAA custodians have long been gnashing their teeth after Frank Murphy breezed into one disciplinary hearing or another like Rumpole of the Bailey, inevitably winning the night with his unrivalled mastery of the GAA constitution.

And this is not exactly the kind of case that is going to elicit the interest of Nelson Mandela. There have been more grievous miscarriages of justice. That the Cork players were actually defending themselves is contentious. Equally questionable is the idea of the "media frenzy".

It should be noted that the only time the GAA media corps ever approach a state of frenzy is when the catering lady produces the chocolate Swiss roll in Croke Park on All-Ireland final day. We tend to make like Cujo in those few minutes, for sure.

There was, however, plenty of sanctimonious guff about the disgraceful scenes in Thurles - and in front of children. If, as the statement seems to imply, the Cork players were described as "thugs" in the print and broadcast media, then that is scurrilous and just plain wrong. Everyone who takes even a passing interest in hurling will know that the three players in question are sportsmen.

Where the three were unquestionably wronged was in the cancellation of their meeting of appeal, while they were already on the road to Portlaoise, because one committee member had not ironed his shirt or whatever. It was a scandalously casual way to treat them and gives substance to the grievance that many players feel about the GAA, as a body, not caring a damn about them. For that, they are owed an apology.

It will be noted, though, that the Clare boys took their medicine without a word of protest. In GAA terms, Cork is a juggernaut.

This episode is bound to deepen the sense of cause within the Cork dressing-room. It will give them that "us against the world" camaraderie off which so many teams, from Ger Loughnane's Clare to Joe Kernan's Armagh to the Kerry of last year, have fed. There is nothing to get a team playing like the sense that the world is not listening.

In Croke Park, though, Nickey Brennan must be mystified. It is unclear exactly what he did to wound Cork feelings.

This episode is not going to bring the Cork GAA spiritually any closer to headquarters. It will be fun in the Ard Comhairle if Cork meet Kilkenny in the All-Ireland final this year.

All in all, the Semple Stadium row and its aftermath constitute a big, bloody mess, the kind of chaos out of nothing that seems to dog the GAA. The story should end now.

The sooner we see the Thurles Three restored to the red and white and contributing to what is blooming into a vintage hurling year the better.