Ó hAilpín admits Rebel career may be over

Seán Óg Ó hAilpín has admitted that there is a strong chance he will never play for Cork again.

The 2008 hurling panel are banking a meeting with the club chairmen in the Maryborough Hotel in Douglas, Cork next Sunday might will force the county board’s hand on the Gerald McCarthy issue.

However that is unlikely after delegates voted in favour of Gerald 84-13 last week, and Ó hAilpín admits his career is on the line at this stage.

“If the current stand-off continues and if Gerald is there for another two years that’s definitely my career probably over because I’d be 33, 34.

“At my age at the minute it’s not something that you could turn on like a light switch,” he said at the launch of the Ulster Bank Sigerson Cup at CIT.

“You need to be playing matches, you need to be showing form. That’s the realisation that’s there for myself and another couple of team-mates.”

Ó hAilpín has only missed three championship games since his debut against Limerick in 1996, but he said the prospect of another Evening Echo SHC title with his club Na Piarsaigh would keep him going.

“I’ve set myself an age of around 36 or 37 to play with the club. We do have good young fellas coming up. I’d like to hang around and any advice or any expertise I can give them, I’d be there for them.

“For the last 10 years I’ve been involved with Cork and I haven’t probably given the 100% commitment that I probably could give to the club.

“If it’s the case this summer that I give my full commitment to the club, I have two brothers playing with the club so that’s something I’d look forward to.

“After that I have ambitions to start underage coaching with my own club and to start helping younger players.

“I do have plans myself, it’s not that I’m going to fall off the edge of the world if my Cork career is over. I have a couple of things in the pipeline.”

If it does transpire that the current panel playing under McCarthy play championship, Seán Óg will be giving them his backing, even if he did not get to see Saturday’s league loss to Tipp.

“To be honest now, and I don’t want to be funny about this, but it was Valentine’s night,” he said.

“I did owe my girlfriend a night out so unfortunately I didn’t get to see the game, I heard the result. Whether you’re playing for Cork or not, you’d still want Cork to win.

“Unfortunately, they lost last Saturday night but that’s all I’m going to comment on that.”

Meanwhile, it has been suggested in the past week that by expanding McCarthy’s management team to a 22-strong unit, a compromise could be found with the 2008 panel.

At the outset of the crisis when the seven-man committee met to select the 2009 hurling manager, the players’ reps explained to the board they felt a top-class management team would feature 22 different roles, including statisticians, video analysts and physios.

However the players remain adamant revising Gerald’s management structure would not be enough to coax them back.

The players are still hoping that club support, following the rescheduled meeting next Sunday, will lead to a new manager replacing Gerald before championship.

Meanwhile the Cork footballers, despite their recent threat to go on strike at the end of the league if a resolution isn’t found, are flying to Portugal next Monday for a week of warm-weather training.

Conor Counihan’s 30-man panel are heading to Browns, the sports training centre in Villamoura, and returning on Sunday March 1.

The travelling party has yet to be finalised because Michael Cussen, John Miskella (both Garda College), Paul Kerrigan, Ray Carey, Paul O’Flynn and Daniel Goulding (all CIT) are involved in tomorrow’s Sigerson quarter-finals. If CIT and Garda College win, they will go forward to the finals weekend, in CIT on February 27-28.

Cork already have a number of injuries. Graham Canty damaged his hamstring against Kildare, and Noel O’Donovan is recovering from the same problem. Nicholas Murphy has a shoulder injury, while James Masters’ back injury will rule him out for three more weeks, though he is back training.

However Michael Shields, Diarmuid Duggan and Brian O’Regan should be fully fit by next week.

Article courtesy of the Evening Echo newspaper.