Big plays, big calls on sport icons as managers drive for winning line

ANYONE who was worked as a manager in any organisation knows how difficult it can be to move people out entirely or into new, seemingly less important, positions.

It’s particularly hard when those people have been regarded as essential by others and know the esteem in which they are held. So there should be some sympathy for two Corkmen in difficult high profile sports management roles who have had to make such decisions about icons recently: Irish rugby coach Declan Kidney and Cork hurling manager Jimmy Barry-Murphy.

Both also have had to do so in the full glare of the public spotlight, accompanied by subsequent loud comment, much of it critical and some hostile. A Taoiseach dropping a cabinet minister might not have had such a hard time of it.