Big players must stand up for what's right

LOCKER ROOM:The real culprits in the Cork saga are not Gerald McCarthy and the disgruntled players, writes Tom Humphries

IT'S NOT a great thing in the current editorial climate for a columnist to lack certainty. Seeing both sides of the issue is a crippling form of paralysis in a environment where the pace is set by bloggers and chat-room tyrants, those lucky creatures who have never felt a second or third thought tugging at their sleeve.

There aren't many of us left who have some sympathy for the Cork hurlers, are there? Does that preclude us from feeling the same thing for Gerald McCarthy? Both sides are victims.

I like Gerald. As a kid I bowed to no man in my worship for Jimmy Barry Murphy. In my ingratiating and shamelessly fawning way I have often embarrassed the great man by reminding him of how after the 1977 All-Ireland final myself and partner in personation blagged our way into the Cork dressingroom, pretending to be lost cousins of Tom Cashman's. Once inside in that happy din we sat either side of Jimmy Barry begging and cajoling him for his hurleys. I tell Jimmy Barry this and he pulls out the order he has nowadays requiring me to keep 500 metres away from him. Ah well.

Anyway, on that day I recall the only thing which distracted me was occasional wincing glances at Gerald McCarthy who was lying corpse-like on the physio table having his upper lip stitched together again with needle and thread. This was being done without benefit of namby pamby things like anaesthetic or a bit of privacy. Gerald was a tough man then and he is a tough man now.

A gentleman, but a tough and a proud one too. No Cork hurler would go to Gerald McCarthy, look him in the eye and say, "Gerald this isn't working out" unless that hurler felt passionately there is a better way.

Gerald's old friend Justin McCarthy walked away with quiet dignity when the Waterford players said time was up last summer. He had less cause to do so than Gerald has. For his sanity and his family he did the right thing. Nobody who has given so much as either Gerald or Justin need to get involved in this sort of unwinnable stand-off at this stage in their lives.

Yet Gerald's statement released this week was as eloquent an expression of generational bewilderment at the modern GAA as I have read. He made his case with almost poetic precision and in the PR war put himself well ahead. The great pity is that Gerald is seen to be in opposition with the players at all. Times have changed. The Cork County Board hasn't. Gerald McCarthy can do nothing about that lag between reality and the time which the board appears to live in.

What about the players? What do people want from them exactly? They took a stand for themselves back in 2002 and in the year that followed on they delivered amply and repaid, as they had said they would, the increased investment of resources and expertise into their cause. They have been a great and charismatic team. They didn't have to put themselves on the line for the football brethren last year but they did so while knowing their own case would be weakened by public fatigue with bickering.

So here they are again. If we desist from the knee-jerk response of "what the bloody hell is wrong with them now" and look over the past few years, the common denominator is a county board and their doggedness. Since 2002 every little gain has been the subject of petty attempts to claw it back. As well as training to be a top intercounty team the Cork players have this sense of constantly having to watch their own backs. They look at Kilkenny and see an entire county moving seamlessly and in unison.

To get out of the position they were in last winter between a rock and a hard place, the Cork players bought a pup on good faith. In a situation where everyone was behaving in an adult fashion, having two players, preferably recent players, on the selection committee choosing senior managers would be a good idea. Sometimes a great manager comes to a team at the wrong time. Mickey Whelan, one of the most talented coaches in Dublin, came to the management position at the wrong time just after the side had won an All-Ireland in the mid-90s. Ger Loughnane was a bad fit in Galway. It happens. Players with recent involvement would be in a good position to gauge the chances of success of any arranged marriage.

After two years when many major games have been lost maybe Gerald isn't the right fit for this current Cork hurling side. That is no slight on either party. They've given each other a chance. They seemed to have come to a natural parting in the wake of the Kilkenny defeat. For some reason, though, Cork finds itself in a state of chassis once again.

Releasing the details of a sports psychology exercise performed last summer while the team was recovering from defeat to Tipperary was about as relevant and helpful as rooting out a couple of old Valentines in the course of a messy divorce proceeding. The immense breach of faith involved tells us something of the environment which the players are operating in.

Fighting the Cork County Board is like being a sea beating against a coastline. You might cause slight erosion but the coastline is always there. It is like fighting one of those Hollywood beasts which refuses to die. As the end credits roll the camera sneakily picks out a faint pulse of a twitching muscle in the body of the apparently slain animal. There will always be a sequel.

Why are the players put in this position? If 30 players who produced those stunningly passionate backs-to-the-walls performances of last summer suddenly feel en masse that there is no point in making themselves available for selection in the future then something is wrong. There is no point in the county board or Gerald attempting to stonewall the issue. I don't believe there is an element within the Cork panel which has a pre-disposition to conflict. I believe they have a pre-disposition towards winning and toward excellence. So, too, does Gerald McCarthy.

They have different road maps showing how to get there but this isn't a case of a panel of players who have given us so much over the past decade feeling an itch during the winter time for a little of the mortification of the soul which comes with general excoriation and public opprobrium. They need this hassle less than anybody.

The odd fact of the matter, and we often forget this in the modern era, is that the players are amateurs. They do what they do because they are chasing something that is almost ethereal. They want the best from themselves. So they take huge chunks of their time to pursue that. And if they think they aren't being provided with a forum where they can do it well, that is the problem of every genuine GAA person in Cork, not just the players and Gerald.

It is time for a little humility all round. No more stags butting in the glen. These are great players. Great people. And a great Cork hurling man Gerald McCarthy. If the current model isn't working, the broader GAA community in Cork needs to appreciate that it is losing out and needs to see to whatever root and branch changes are needed to make things better. Permanently .

The fault isn't with Gerald or with the players. There was a shameful silence when Billy Morgan was shafted. There have been shameful silences from great Cork GAA men on practically every issue going back to 2002. Gerald isn't shafting the players here and the players aren't shafting Gerald. Gerald and the players are being shafted by people whose sole interest is keeping scores and keeping control.

Blaming players is easy. Time for some big people to stand up for what is right. Time to make sure that this is the last time a group of players who have given so much to the Cork jersey feel that they have to put themselves in the stockades for a while to make progress.