GAELIC GAMES NEWS:THE SEEMINGLY never-ending conflict within Cork GAA took another turn yesterday at an Adidas event out in the Garda Sports centre in Westmanstown, Dublin, where Seán Óg Ó hAilpín was highly critical of the Cork County Board for extending the tenure of hurling manager Gerald McCarthy.

"Players are not going playing under Ger," began Ó hAilpín, "it's as simple as that. They are not going back. Ger is a bit of a problem, but he is a by-product of what is going on. It is literally the county board . . . this is revenge time for them to settle old scores.

"What I can't understand is how they can justify Ger's reappointment for another two years.

"Surely the best interests of the Cork hurlers - looking at the last two years, we have been way off the mark. Stuff that we fought for in 2002 and which gave us a great running template for three or four years, all of that has eroded, evaporated.

"Maybe not to the younger fellows, but certainly to the older fellows and even the middle ground fellows, fellows like Ronan Curran who have been there as well, it has all been evaporated."

McCarthy's two-year term was considered a backward step by the players in terms of preparation and training, and this may well have been borne out in the results of an albeit aging team.

"(Previous manager) John Allen met Gerald McCarthy shortly after his appointment and said, 'look, Ger, I am there for advice if you need advice' about what was going in the last couple of years. Ger said he would contact him. Did he contact him? No."

Ó hAilpín's dissection of McCarthy's tenure also touched upon a the county board's failure to expand their search for a manager.

"Surely in a county the size of Cork there are other guys who were capable of doing as good a job as Gerald did in the last two years. If Gerald was the guy (who was chosen) then afterwards, grand. All the county board had to do was interview every fella and probably just say, grand, we still think Gerald McCarthy is the best man for the job. But no, they jumped the gun, they seemed to be saying, 'F*** ye' to the players.

"For the last two years there have been three attempts to get rid of Ger," continued Ó hAilpín. "This hasn't been the only time. We had a players' meeting last year. Obviously I'm not happy about last year. Just the way his general managership and training structures had gone for the year, whatever.

"We kept tight-lipped until his turn was up. We thought after his turn was up - he said going out that he wasn't interested - that was the word coming back, that he had two years and he would hardly go back or whatever."

During the hurlers support of the Cork football strike last season, their representatives warned the county board about re-appointing McCarthy.

"John Gardiner and Donal Óg (Cusack) sat in the meetings, and basically (the board) were pinning their hopes on Ger. The boys came out saying, 'look, this would be a wrong appointment and we've had problems with Ger', but they still go and appoint him."

A clearly frustrated Ó hAilpín spoke of the desperate need for a mediator. "We'd be open to anything at this stage. I don't feel comfortable talking about this. The bottom line is, I play; this might suit the county board fellas because that's what they do all their lives, sit down at meetings. They don't sweat it out on the pitch during the winter months or whatever, they're probably more than comfortable with this. But it's not easy for me talking about a subject like this."

He also felt there was a vendetta directed towards the players by the county executive.

"Of course, they do. There's a feeling there, get rid of Seán Óg, get rid of Donal Óg, get rid of Diarmuid O'Sullivan, get rid of Joe (Deane), and basically they'll be back to the status quo again, (they think) the young fellas won't rock the boat.

"And that's what Cork has been about, not rocking the boat; everyone has been living this big lie that things are fine, but it's not. I said it a few weeks ago, if you look at the state of affairs in Cork, things are not too healthy.

"Clubs are struggling to get numbers, there are no academies in place, Páirc Uí Chaoimh is dying on its feet - if people say we have these great administrators in Cork, why is all that the case?"

On the question of players going on strike again or simply walking away, Ó hAilpín simply stated: "Look, I ain't getting into that. I got the s*** kicked out of me last year. My own club went against me and everything - no comment on that."

He also refused to speak about long-serving county secretary Frank Murphy.

But on the board in general, he added: "I have to give up at this stage, boy. Everything we do we do in good faith; in previous disputes, we'd hope that there would be a good working relationship to move things on, but obviously they see us as trouble, for some strange reason, they see us as trouble because we don't go with the status quo.

"We don't say, 'Yes Frank (Murphy), three bags full Frank,' - do you know what I mean? Put up with what you've said for 28 years? Since we stood up to the county board in 2002 (the strike), this is payback time. They probably know they have us in a situation. The spin out there is, 'What are the players complaining about, didn't they have two players on the committee'. But they had five guys. All they needed was four (for a majority).

"Obviously the players are being questioned, but the county board, the executive of the county board, have a lot to answer for. If this was a limited company there would be questions posed to the head guys, 'What is going on?' Good leadership should come from the top, not from the bottom up.

"This is the third dispute in six years - if teams were run properly from the top down, there would be no need for any of this."