Rebel players list litany of complaints against Gerald

THE 2008 Cork hurling panel last night listed a litany of complaints from Gerald McCarthy’s two-year reign of management.

Jerry O’Connor described how the detailed video analysis of previous management teams was ditched for footage of opposing teams celebrating.

“Under previous managers we used to have a system in place where the manager would go through the match footage of games that we played,’’ O’Connor said. “It was the dreaded curly finger where you’d get called over by the manager and he’d say ‘look, here’s what you did in the game, this is wrong, you can’t be at this, or here’s what you did and this is the result’.

“The year just gone a few weeks before the Tipp game, we were taken into the gym below in Páirc Uí Chaoimh. We were sitting down and the screen was put up, and we were going to look at footage from last year’s Tipp and Cork in Thurles. We said, ‘yeah we’ll learn something out of this’. It started off with a sideline ball which was the last puck of the game and the ball went in, whistle blown. We were watching for up to 10 minutes, watching Tipp players and fans jumping around the field. All the time there was no sound.

“We thought what’s going to happen here, we’re surely going to see footage of how the game was won and lost. He said, ‘Lads this is how Tipp celebrated when they beat us last year, that’s what it meant to them’.

“What did we learn from that? Absolutely nothing. That’s just another example of papering over the cracks.

“A couple of weeks after that, we were taken to the canteen. The same screen was pulled. This time the sound was working to be fair, they’d figured it out. They found the volume button. We watched the exact same thing again for 10 minutes. In this day and age that’s a joke.”

Valley Rovers’ Kevin Canty outlined how none of the management team approached him after he was substituted against Tipperary in last year’s championship and that McCarthy was unaware that he was in hospital before the All-Ireland semi-final against Kilkenny.

“I made my debut in the Tipp game. I got taken off after 40 minutes and was not approached by any of the management after the game to discuss it. I was downhearted. Another thing before the Kilkenny game, I spent some time in hospital. I went in on a Monday and it was the following Sunday before Gerald contacted me, and he told me he didn’t realise I was in there. Six days later before he contacted me. I thought it wasn’t good enough.”

Ballinhassig goalkeeper Martin Coleman also described how the management never explained why Anthony Nash was preferred to him for the 2007 Munster semi-final against Waterford when Donal Óg Cusack was suspended, and how McCarthy called him the wrong name in training after that game.

“I had an incident in 2007 in the famous Semplegate affair where Donal Óg Cusack was suspended for a game. Myself and Anthony Nash were going for goalkeeper, and unfortunately for me, Anthony got the nod that day. When something like that happens, it’s a dent to your confidence. Under management before, you’d get a boost when the manager would have a few words with you.

“What happened to me was we were doing a drill in training, taking shots on goalkeepers. We’d all get a minute each, Donal Óg, myself and Anthony. Donal Óg was called in, Anthony was called in and then the next thing Gerald called ‘Brendan’. I was looking around, we were all looking around, ‘Who’s Brendan?’ My name is Martin Coleman but Gerald was looking at me and called me the wrong name. He didn’t even know my name and you’re thinking, what’s the point of being here?”

Kevin Hartnett recalled a similar incident where McCarthy mistook him for Bishopstown’s Patrick Cronin.

He recalled: On a number of occasions where we were training, I’d have come out of the dressing room and he’d have called me Pa Cronin, asked me how I was getting on with Bishopstown. I actually met him on the street one day and I was talking to him. I knew from talking to him that he was asking about an injury and I wasn’t injured at all.”

Cronin also described how McCarthy referred to his performance in a challenge match that he was not even at. He said: “Coming up to the Tipperary game, the selectors organised a match against Waterford in Mallow. Unfortunately I was on senior football duty with my club Bishopstown that day. The following Tuesday was my first training session back. I couldn’t believe it when I heard Gerald call us all in and was saying I’d made excellent runs the previous Sunday. That was in a game I wasn’t playing in.”

Timmy McCarthy outlined how the manager was unaware of what club he was playing for during the 2008 championship.

“We played a club championship game on a Saturday night and Bride Rovers were playing on the Sunday. I was talking to Gerald after and he said ‘I heard you played well last week and ran up a big score and Brian (Murphy) got the equalising goal’. I thought he was actually pulling the piss out of me to be honest. I said: ‘Gerald, I play for Castlelyons, not Bride Rovers.’

“It came into my head, if he didn’t realise what club I was playing for, how would he know what my club form was like?

“Then against Tipperary, there was six forwards playing who’d never played together before. That was not great preparation. I’m well used to being taken off, it’s been part of my career for a hell of a long time. I think I played one of my better games for Cork that day. About 45 minutes into the game, the board went up. I had to look twice to see had they made a mistake, was that my number they’d put up. Now I don’t want any praise, I hate the spotlight. But Cork hurling means a lot to me and to be taken off on one of my better games, hurt me a lot.”