Bennis accuses Limerick chiefs of ‘opting out’

LIMERICK legend Richie Bennis has launched a stinging attack on county board chiefs on Shannonside.

Bennis, a member of the last Limerick team to win an All-Ireland SHC title in 1973, criticised the process to appoint a hurling boss and also slammed the executive for allowing the stand-off between former manager Justin McCarthy and last year’s panel to drag on.

Bennis, who has a two-year spell in charge of Limerick and lead them to the 2007 decider, argues that the board has shed its responsibilities by appointing a three-man committee of Paudie Fitzmaurice, Damien Quigley and Jim Woulfe to come up with someone to take over the reins next year.

“The county board are elected to run the county’s affairs and they’ve opted out already” he told Newstalk’s The Dunphy Show. “They picked five individuals to pick three individuals to come up with a manager. That’s opting out.

“I have no problem with the three lads but the way it’s done… I would have got all the previous managers of the last four or five years – and we’ve had a lot of them – and see where it went wrong and how you’d right it. But they haven’t even consulted any past manager.”

Bennis also pointed the finger at the board for not taking decisive action when cracks began to appear in the relationship between McCarthy and his players.

“It’s very sad,’’ he said. “The blame must start with the county board. They allowed it to gather momentum. If they’d have acted quickly the problem would have been solved. They got plenty of advice and plenty of reasons to do so but seemingly they wanted Justin at all costs. I felt sorry for the lads (against Cork in the championship); they were like lambs to the slaughter.”