Hassetts refuse to join Kerry

Kerry's championship preparations were dealt an unwelcome complication with the news that the Mike and Liam Hassett have refused to join the training panel for the defence of the Munster and All-Ireland titles.

The brothers, 24 and 21 respectively, who between them captained the county to three major titles last year, have been known to be unhappy with the team selection that led to Mike's non-selection for the All-Ireland final. Further fuel was added to the fire by the decision not to award him one of the 21 medals officially struck for championship-winning panels.

Although Hassett has never made an issue of the medal allocation, he expressed himself unhappy with the manner in which he was informed of the decision last December.

The announcement comes at the end of a week which has seen the revised training panel for the coming championship receiving publicity on account of some of the names dropped. Manager Paidi O Se said earlier in the week that the panel would be finalised at the end of the All-Ireland under-21 campaign.

Neither he nor the Hassetts were available for comment yesterday.

It was known that a crisis meeting between Mike Hassett and county chairman Sean Walsh was scheduled. According to Walsh, who made public the decision yesterday: "It would have been last weekend except that Mike was away in Prague (on a school tour). We spoke the day before yesterday and Mike informed me of his decision not to play with the county this year. He said he had lost his appetite for playing and training with the county."

Whereas Mike's decision was not entirely unexpected, the decision of his brother Liam to support him in resigning from the panel was still a matter of conjecture until yesterday.

"I was talking to Liam and he said that he wouldn't like to rejoin the panel without Mike," said Walsh.

Neither of the brothers had played for Kerry since the opening league fixture last October, the commemorative match between Kerry and Cavan in New York. Although named in O Se's provisional training panel in recent weeks, neither has trained with the county. Walsh stressed to journalists at yesterday's first day of the GAA Annual Congress in the Burlington that his dealings with both players had been civil.

"I would like to say that, in my meetings with Mike, he was very courteous about the whole matter. For any captain not to get a place in an All-Ireland final - he wasn't dropped, because he didn't play in the semi-final - is very hard. I think it's a trauma he's still getting over. He's very hurt."

It is an unhappy end to an unhappy story. Both Hassetts and a third brother, Adrian, were members of the famous Laune Rangers club in Killorglin which won the All-Ireland club title in 1996 and has been the county's most successful club this decade.

Last year, Mike was appointed Kerry captain and led the county to the National Football League title with a final win over Cork in Pairc Ui Chaoimh before going on to captain the side which beat Clare in the Munster final in Limerick.

Injury intervened to deprive him of his place for the All-Ireland semifinal against Cavan, and he wasn't recalled for the final. Speculation at that stage was split between the belief that his omission was due to the injury not recovering and those who maintained that his form wasn't good enough.

Either way, further insult was added to injury in the eyes of many when he learned before Christmas that he wasn't to receive a medal, not through official channels but when the matter became public knowledge.

Sean Walsh was anxious that the Kerry county board's decision in relation to the medal be stated clearly. "I haven't seen our side of it put anywhere in the media," he said. "Some counties may strike extra medals, but it's against the Rules which state that 21 medals are distributed for a championship-winning team. To award Mike a medal would have meant that someone who played in the All-Ireland series would have lost out. There were six players used against Cavan and Mayo, on top of the team that started the All-Ireland final. Mike Hassett wasn't one of them."

Nonetheless, Walsh admitted that "more could have been done" for Hassett in recognition of his earlier captaincy successes last year.

The Kerry chairman went on to point out that his county had submitted motions to Congress proposing that the number of players permitted on a panel, 24, be reconciled with the number of medals officially authorised.

Clare hurlers were presented with sufficient medals to cover the entire training panel and there were no official recriminations over the matter. In Kerry, however, the tradition has always been that the stated allocation and no more is struck.

Nonetheless, in the light of Kerry's first national successes at senior level for 11 years - the longest drought since the county started winning All-Irelands - there was a belief that more medals could have been distributed.