Hard to see logic of Séan Óg axing
Consider the furore which didn’t occur in the last seven days.
Cork senior hurling selector Pa Finn was quoted on Monday afternoon as saying: “All that we are doing is outlining our early plans for 2011 and I am not aware of any specific details of one individual or another.
“Regarding Seán Óg, that’s the first I have heard about him not being involved next season.”
In any other county that would have been seized on as evidence of managerial discord or some such, sparking a parallel debate to the main event.
Not in Cork.
On Leeside recent turbulence has turned observers into the hurling and football equivalent of those Cold War Kremlinologists who parsed Pravda for super-subtle indications of shifts in policy. Finn’s comments raised barely an eyebrow, such was the focus on Seán Óg O hAilpín’s removal from the Cork senior hurling squad as the key issue.
The event itself didn’t last long. The manager got to the point quickly at their review meeting, telling the player that he wasn’t in his plans for 2011, and that was more or less that: Seán Óg O hAilpín was released back into civilian life, demobbed after 14 years’ active service with the Cork senior hurling team.
When word drifted around Leeside last weekend that the 2005 All-Ireland-winning captain would not be considered for action next season, there was general disbelief.
To most observers O hAilpín had ended the 2010 season in credit, and a legendary approach to physical preparation meant he didn’t figure on people’s list of players that manager Denis Walsh was likely to discard.
Following this paper breaking the story on Monday morning, however, O hAilpín issued a statement confirming his removal via the Gaelic Players Association, in which the crucial comments were: “I met with the Cork hurling manager, Denis Walsh, on Saturday last (16th September) where he informed me that I was not in his plans for the Cork Hurling Panel.
“I would love to continue to play for Cork, but I must respect the manager’s decision in this regard.”
Denis Walsh’s stated position being one of not commenting on the panel between October and January, the questions flying on Leeside and beyond remained unanswered all last week.
For one, O hAilpín was considered good enough to start every game he was available for in the summer of 2010, so what was the logic behind a dismissal come the autumn?
Removing a player renowned for his professional approach to preparation seems strange.
DURING the summer the off-field preparations of two Cork players in the run-up to one championship game led to a confrontation between them and senior members of the panel, yet both players remain in the frame for the 2011 season.
Too old at 33? The team Cork lost to in this year’s Munster final featured a 37-year-old, Tony Browne, playing in the same position on the field for Waterford, while former opponents such as Dan Shanahan and JJ Delaney have opined that they felt the Corkman had more left to give.
A positive influence on the new breed? Many observers felt that the Na Piarsaigh man would have been a positive influence in the Cork dressing-room with the expected influx of young players in 2011, a view shared by several of his teammates.
As one current player said: “Who would be a better player to learn from when it comes to the demands of being an inter-county player than Seán Óg O hAilpín?”
With those and other questions left hanging, and given the well-documented conflict of recent years on Leeside between players and officials, conspiracy theorists in the deep south have been swift to point to O hAilpín’s prominence in the recent player strikes as a possible reason for his demotion.
Such paranoiacs have also noted that Donal Óg Cusack and John Gardiner, equally prominent in those strikes, are abroad at present, as though their absence were somehow significant.
However, even though mobile phones around Cork cheeped early in the week with suggestions that other senior players were going to be or had been cut adrift by the management, as the days went by word seeped out that they remained in place.
Despite tension in some of the review meetings, as of yesterday none of those earmarked for the chop by the hurlers on the ditch were sidelined.
A handful of fringe players were told they wouldn’t be included next year, but Ben and Jerry O’Connor, Tom Kenny, Ronan Curran and Donal Óg Cusack were all retained for action in 2011, which made the decision to drop O hAilpín even more baffling to most observers.
RETAINING experienced players to help newcomers along is a basic principle of management – even though Tipp fielded five U21s on their senior All-Ireland-winning side they were aided by the likes of Eoin Kelly and Brendan Cummins.
(Those optimists in Cork seeking solace in the county’s extra-time defeat by Tipperary in this year’s U21 championship should recall 1997, when a well-regarded Cork side needed a late, late Timmy McCarthy goal to see off the Premier in the same grade; which county went on to dominate at senior level over the next decade?).
There are likely to be one or two twists in the story in the coming days.
With the Cork senior hurling panel down for a general fitness test next weekend, it remains to be seen if the matter will be raised by either players or management.
Furthermore, Aisake O hAilpín was in Australia until Thursday and has not yet met with the management team regarding 2011.
His views on what happened to his brother may make for an interesting discussion.
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