Players to meet board as Rebel row goes on

THE executive of the Cork County Board hope to meet representatives of the striking senior football and hurling teams on Wednesday in a bid to resolve the dispute over the appointment of team managements.

Other than county board secretary Frank Murphy confirming this in a radio interview on radio station County Sound on Saturday, the row wasn’t mentioned at the annual convention later in the evening — either by a club delegate or chairman Michael Dolan in his formal address.

However, one delegate did refer to the dispute indirectly, by way of taking “a club colleague” (believed to be Anthony Lynch) to task over something he was quoted as saying last week.

Sean MacSuibhne from the Naomh Abán club, a former officer of the board, said he “took exception” to what had been said on behalf of the players “objecting to the situation that’s pertaining at the moment, where they wanted everything put in place properly” — as it had been this year.

MacSuibhne said: “He should think back to September to something that gave him great grief when the All-Ireland panel was sent up to Dublin. He did not appear in it. So if that’s the kind of arrangement he wanted, well and good,” he said.

MacSuibhne was referring to the omission of Lynch from the list of Cork players submitted for inclusion in the programme for the All-Ireland SFC final against Kerry. His name wasn’t included after he had been injured a week earlier, but he still made an appearance early in the second half wearing a number 31 jersey.

In his radio interview, Frank Murphy spoke for the first time about the threatened strike, saying: “the county board has put in place its senior football selection committee for the next two years, based on its powers in rule and based on the votes taken on two occasions by the clubs of the county. It is disappointing that we have an impasse at the present time in relation to that.”

Asked if there was a meeting planned for Wednesday night, he said: “the executive had been endeavouring, in contacts made behind the scenes, to have a meeting earlier than that. In point of fact we had hoped for a meeting last Monday and again to have a meeting over a 48-hour period from Thursday. But, we understand that the players had difficulty in having the men that they want to have available for that meeting together until Wednesday. So, if that has to be the case, it will be Wednesday!”

Murphy expressed confidence that the county can make a breakthrough in senior football in the near future, saying: “We have done far better against Kerry in the Munster arena, whether it is in Killarney or Cork. It’s hard to put a finger on that (Croke Park) situation, but Kerry are Kerry in the football context. It is very hard to beat them, no matter what opposition they encounter in Croke Park on All-Ireland final day.

“We have done well in the past year. If you look at the records, we have done second best to Kerry if you take into account that we were in the senior final, that we won the U-21 and junior titles, that we won the Munster minor football against Kerry and were most unlucky to lose by a single point to Derry in the All-Ireland series.

“I think the foundation is there for success in the future. I think we have the players that we can build a very formidable team with.” Murphy also spoke about the incidents in Thurles before Cork’s Munster championship game against Clare, what became known as ‘Semplegate’: “It was unfortunate, I wasn’t even aware of the incidents until after the game. But, nonetheless I think there was too great a hype in relation to what did occur on that occasion and I think that possibly the penalisation was undue given the circumstances. That said, there is no doubt it had an impact on the fortunes of the county subsequently.

“We were deprived of having three key players in the Munster semi-final against Waterford, a game that was eventually determined by the width of the crossbar, in that a ball hit the crossbar that would have given us an equaliser in the closing stages in what was an enthralling Munster semi-final. It meant the team were put into a very exacting, demanding schedule of games which they had to play.

“It was certainly not of help either to the team or the players involved. I would say also that there was somewhat of an inconsistency in terms of the approach of people charged with discipline in how they approached it as distinct from their approach in others. It put tremendous pressure on the players and on their colleagues also.”