Cork hurlers call strike

A simmering dispute between the hurlers and the Cork county board finally boiled over and, after a historic announcement Friday that the players were withdrawing their services, Cork has no team.
Whereas in the past examples of player power have frequently been poorly thought out and badly timed, this rebellion by the banks of the Lee has been both decisive and dramatic in its sobriety. And in a further development, the Cork footballers have rowed in behind their county colleagues, offering their full support, while the Gaelic Players Association has said that the Cork county board’s treatment of the players has been both “scandalous and intolerable.”
So why the most significant off-the-pitch impasse in the history of the GAA? Basically, the players have gone on strike because they are adamant that the county board has been depriving them of both the essentials for adequate preparation and the perks that should go with the status of a senior intercounty performer.
For example, the players want better training gear, they want access to gyms close to their homes, they want adequate medical backup for all national league and championship games, they want 20 complimentary stand tickets to be made available to each panel member, they want mileage to be paid at the premium rate, they want bus travel for short trips only and either train or plane for longer journeys, and they want better meals and a foreign holiday for each panel member and his partner.
Too much? Not according to the hurlers, who are amateurs but who are expected to train and prepare like professionals, and who line the GAA’s coffers year in, year out by filling stadiums from Pairc Ui Chaoimh to Croke Park.
The Cork contingent members were adamant that they wouldn’t have taken such a public stand if their earlier negotiations with the county board hadn’t been so fruitless. But the frustration, the anger, and the lack of respect shown by Cork officialdom finally proved too much when seven players representing the panel faced the media last week.
Joe Deane, Mark Landers, Sean Og O hAilpin, Diarmuid O’Sullivan, Alan Browne, Donal Og Cusack and Fergal Ryan catalogued their complaints during a tense press conference. There were confrontations in the dressing room, on the line and at training — it appeared that the players and the county board had been at loggerheads for more than a year.
“We asked the county board chairman, Jim Cronin, if it was right that it was costing players money to play for Cork,” Cusack said. “He said, ‘No’. We asked the same question of the secretary, Frank Murphy, and he refused to answer.”
O hAilpin was admant that a lack of respect was at the heart of the problem.
“Maybe it’s because a lot of them haven’t played the game and don’t understand the requirements that sports people need,” he said.
Deane said it had been a chore to go training. “Our defeat against Galway was abysmal, but coming off the field fellows were saying, ‘It was only to be expected’ because there was absolutely no morale there,” he said.
Cusack added that the players were against pay for play. “We just want the facilities available which will help us fulfill our abilities as athletes and players,” he said. “We have to make a stand or this will go on for years.”
At the heart of the conflict is the role of Frank Murphy. A salaried, full-time secretary of the county board, Murphy is widely regarded as a conservative who has for long been against the agitation by the players. However, given that he extends his role as an administrator to one of hurling selector, his insistence on wearing two hats has angered the panel.
“We made the point that members of the executive who were on the selection panel had an undue influence over the rest of the selectors,” Cusack said. “We also felt there was a conflict of interest that one of the selectors this year, Frank Murphy, was actually a member of the seven-man committee that selected the selectors.”
It emerged last week that during earlier meetings between the players and Murphy, the exchanges had been heated. O hAilpin raised the issue of Murphy’s dual mandate as secretary and as a selector and questioned his attendance record at training. Another player, Kevin Murray, accused Murphy of being a negative influence on the sideline and that he was shouting and “screaming” at the selectors during the 1999 All-Ireland final.
With Murphy refusing to budge on the players’ demands for change, he responded that only three were or four were really disenfranchised and that the others were merely being led. That slight only served to unite the players even more.
With a county convention scheduled for the weekend and a growing clamor for the Cork county board and Murphy to sort out this unsavory mess, support is growing for the players’ position by the day.
This unprecedented strike could prove to be the most important development in the players’ lengthy battle for recognition by the GAA. It now seems that semiprofessionalism, or some form of pay for play, can only be around the corner.