Rebels have a cause, says former hero Corcoran

Two time Hurler of the Year Brian Corcoran has come out in sympathy with the players who have this week plunged the Cork GAA into turmoil after their war of words with the Cork County Board.

Corcoran last night said the breakdown was a long time coming.

"A series of small things all add up to make a bad climate and from listening to some of the Cork lads there seems to have been a change in atmosphere this year in the Cork camp.

"After that and the controversy surrounding the league final GPA protest, the whole morale of the Cork set up seemed to slide downhill. If it is to start climbing again a number of things will have to be addressed by the County Board," he said.

But Corcoran, who retired from the game last season at 28, denied he would still be playing if he had been better treated by GAA officialdom.

"I gave up playing because I lost the desire to put in ten months of preparation for championship games. It isn't that I wouldn't love to play at Croke Park, but I was no longer willing

to make the professional levels of commitment it takes to get there.

"But for the players who are still making that commitment, the facilities as the players have rightly said, have to be spot on. I mean, it is accepted that weight training is now an essential. But the board should pay for a player's gym membership in a gym located near where he lives, to make it feasible for him to train properly."

Even though Corcoran doesn't advocate 'pay for play', he thinks proper holidays for players should be set up regularly and he remembers with regret, and a little anger, the response he got when he helped organise a holiday to Thailand for the Cork players after their All Ireland winning season of 1999.

"First of all we had to generate a lot of the revenue ourselves. After the long slog of trying to win an All-Ireland title and the last thing a player should be asked to do is go around selling pictures of the team.

"We got, I think, £25,000 from Guinness towards a holiday fund and a few bob from our other sponsors at the time. A few of us went to the Cork Co. board to see what they would give towards the holiday fund and we were told that they had already given it.

"When I asked 'how was that?', I got a reply that the £25,000 that came from Guinness was the county board's contribution.

"Obviously my response was that this was a sponsors' contribution, but I was told the sponsors gave it to the county board and the county board was now giving it to the players. To me that was a cop out and a real eye opener.

"I also thought that we should have got something from Croke Park because they were the ones who got the revenue from Cork winning the All-Ireland. Something like £100,000 from Croke Park to the winners of the All-Ireland title would only represent about a few thousand tickets. Anyway there was nothing from either the county board or from Croke Park."

Corcoran also recalled that there were other problems he encountered over the years, not least with ticket allocations for big matches which routinely caused problems.

"I remember in '99 that there was a fringe player, Eoin Fitzgerald from Castlelyons, who was training with us for a lot of the year. Eoin was just out of minor and when it came to the All-Ireland semi final against Offaly he was told there was no allocation for him because he wasn't a part of the official panel for that game.

"Eventually he got something off the county board, but that shouldn't happen.

It's disappointing enough for a player not to make the cut for a big game but then when he can't even get tickets as easily as everyone else on the panel, having done all the work in training, it doesn't make for team morale, unity and spirit."

Corcoran went on to say, in his opinion, the players weren't asking for an arm or a leg and that the board needed to sit down quickly with them and thrash the whole thing out or else the deterioration in Cork hurling fortunes would continue.

"As far as I can see the players are not asking for a lot and the board can't drop them en bloc so, having come to a head, the situation needs to be resolved now.

"It is a pity that the GAA hasn't properly recognised the GPA. The mere fact that Croke Park has set up its own players group, means that they think that the voice of players needs a proper channel but that proper channel is the GPA," he said.