O hAilpín says Cork’s strike scars are healing

CORK star Sean Óg O hAilpín says he is softening in his attitude towards the players that ex-manager Gerald McCarthy brought in to play for Cork in the National Hurling League last year.

O hAilpín and his fellow 2008 panellists would not play for McCarthy last year but Cork were still able to field a team before the dispute was settled.

“Don’t get me wrong, the last strike was cruel and the scars are still there and maybe they will never go away, but I do think that good will come out of it. I might not be around to get the benefits but others will and that was one of the main reasons we took a stand.

“Last year, anyone I saw who went across the ‘picket line’ had a black mark in my book but maybe when you’re so deep in the trenches you see nothing else. It’s only when the season goes ahead and you’re in the same dressing room as these other fellows that you try to put yourself in their shoes. Like . . . they had a chance to play for Cork,” he told the Sunday Independent.

“They’re only human too, and so that’s when the softness came out on my behalf.

“From our perspective, the alternative Cork team didn’t help the cause; I reckon the whole thing would have been sorted out long before it was if there wasn’t another team out there. But I think people on our side of the fence now realise why the lads played away and hopefully they realise what we did as well.

“Maybe there’s a bit of respect there now on both sides that wasn’t there once. That’s down to Denis (Walsh). He has done so well to get the spirit going in the camp. It was nearly like apartheid trying to get two sides working together.”

The Na Piarsaigh clubman paid tribute to Walsh’s growing influence: “Denis had a real calming effect. He inherited two teams coming together but got us all playing our hearts out for Cork again. In many ways he starts his reign proper now and he knows the panel he wants.”

O hAilpín is now focused on getting himself right for 2010.

“I’ll be honest, it’s the likes of the Tony Browne and Colin Lynch stories that keep me going. There’s a mindset with the two of them as well as keeping their bodies in peak shape. Tony is just as important to the Waterford team now as he was 10 years ago and until he retired so too was Colin. They’re the shining light for me and fellows my age.”

The 2005 All-Ireland-winning captain pays tribute to current kingpins Kilkenny: “We always knew that Kilkenny were up there but did we envisage after 2004 and ‘05 that they would win the four-in-a-row? No we didn’t. But that’s the beauty of sport, it’s so competitive. They blew us out of it and they’re basically looking down on us and the others.

“More than anyone, Kilkenny handle history well and they have the incentive of going for the five-in-a-row which has never been done before. But teams like us have the incentive of trying to stop them, like the Offaly footballers of 1982 when they stopped Kerry. That said, our first goal is to beat Tipperary. They should have won the All-Ireland last year. We can’t look beyond that but if we do beat Tipperary... Jesus, that would be great progress in my book.”

He hopes his brother Aisake will play a bigger role this year, after returning to the Cork hurling scene in 2009 from four years with another brother, Setanta, in the AFL.

“He had to start back walking in hurling terms. Last year was tough having to effectively pick up the game from scratch and we all saw from the games that he’s definitely out of sync. But the co-ordination will come.

“Aisake came back to Cork more educated in his sporting knowledge. I’ve learned stuff from him, he knows when to take protein and that; knows what time of the year to do certain types of work.

“I don’t think he’s settled in properly yet. It broke his heart to come back, he had his heart set on following Setanta and breaking in at Carlton, he was heartbroken leaving Melbourne and Setanta.”