Limerick Secretary denies Foley claims

Limerick GAA Secretary Mike O'Riordan has distanced himself from the comments made by former Limerick senior hurling captain Mark Foley in a weekend interview as the Limerick hurling crisis continues.

Foley outlined that there was tremendous pressure being placed on the 2009 hurlers by the Limerick County Board to return to the panel.

The Adare clubman claimed that one unemployed player had been offered "the carrot of a job on the provision he came back to Justin".

"He rang a selector a week later to tell him he wasn't going back and was told they had got a job for him but he wouldn't be getting it," explained Foley.

But O'Riordan has firmly challenged Foley's claims, stating that the Limerick County Board always try to help players with employment.

"I would be talking to a lot of people in business and education from doing a lot of the donkey work in relation to getting fellas into employment or into courses," said O'Riordan.

"I'm doing that constantly, but I didn't speak to any player to tell him that a job was no longer there for him.

"James Ryan is a coach with Limerick yet he is one of the players who is currently not on the squad. That's not an issue for us.

"We've had players working on the Gaelic Grounds redevelopment who won't play now. We'd always try and help someone if we could in that regard. It's no big deal."

And Foley also hit out at clubs for being influenced in their decision, by tickets and grants promises from the County Board.

"They (the Board) say they act in the best interests of Limerick hurling when they clearly don't," he said.

"Respect for the Limerick hurler is minimal in the higher positions of the County Board. There are just too many delegates bought by the executive and that's the reflection on the street in Limerick.

"They get their tickets and grants and they don't want to upset that."

But O'Riordan feels that this is definitely not the case.

"The grants come directly from the Munster Council, and as for tickets, every club is entitled to a set allocation, and that allocation doesn't change from one year to the next," he countered.

"It has absolutely nothing to do with how club delegates vote at the different meetings. Senior clubs, intermediate, junior, they all get a set allocation and that doesn't change from year to year."

An emergency meeting of the Limerick County Board will take place tomorrow night, with a motion tabled to decide the future of Justin McCarthy as the Shannonsiders' senior hurling manager.