County Board meeting ignores player statement

ALMOST 300 people packed into the Claughaun GAA clubhouse for Tuesday’s eagerly awaited January County Board meeting and yet there was space for a large elephant in the room. Remarkably not a single comment was passed on the current inter-county senior hurling impasse which has divided Limerick GAA for the last three months.
The lack of comment is all the more surprising given that the meeting took place on the same day that 24 members of the 2009 senior hurling panel released their only statement, which was critical of both Justin McCarthy’s management and the County Board.
The 24 players representing 15 different clubs and yet no club delegate opted to raise any concerns.
To be fair to the executive officers of Limerick GAA there were no road blocks placed in the way of the clubs.
The only brief mention of the inter-county scene came when Patrickswell’s John Tuohy was ratified as a new selector to McCarthy’s backroom team. The former Bruree county championship winning manager was proposed and seconded without any comment from the delegates.
The current stand-off between management and the players could have been raised at this juncture or under the ‘any other business’ section of the meeting’s agenda, but all remained silent.
Although not directly the on-going saga was raised when the Croom GAA club delegate read a statement to the meeting regarding last week’s article from Limerick Leader columnist Martin Kiely.
“On behalf of Croom GAA we don’t want to let this meeting pass by without drawing the board’s and the delegates’ attention to a very serious matter. Last week there was an article in the Limerick Leader which included a vindictive personal attack on a current Limerick player. The article by written by Mr. Martin Kiely and although he did not name the individual, it is commonly known in GAA circles and beyond exactly who he was referring to,” read Croom’s Mike Mangan.
“This is not the first time he targeted this particular player over the last few years and it mounts to nothing more than a personal vendetta.
“To refer to this player as the greatest cancer in Limerick hurling in the last few years and to make accusations regarding his personal and private life without any evidence, dates or facts is nothing short of a disgrace. While he is prepared to accept criticism on the field, what was written has caused his family and himself great personal distress.
“We challenge Mr. Kiely to name who he talking about and either back it up with facts or to apologise and retract what he said. We call on the county board to defend this player and demand an apology of this disgraceful attack on a man that has represented Limerick since under-16 level,” concluded the statement.
Ahane delegate Donal Morrissey supported the Croom statement.
“There should be no place in any publication to treat our players in that fashion,” said Donal Morrissey.
Adare’s Sean Heffernan called the article absolutely “scurrilous and a disgrace”.
Ahane’s Louis Quirke raised another concern about the article in question.
“As a board we should disassociate ourselves totally from the article,” Louis Quirke said.
“He also finished his article last week by passing comment on people that have come into this county and come in here and pass comment on what is going on in Limerick.
“People who come into this county are welcome into it if they want to promote the GAA in Limerick,” said Quirke.
In total the meeting lasted over two and a half hours and was dominated by transfers and declarations.
At the outset of the night, an EGM was held, where Claughaun’s Liam O’Sullivan was elected to the vacant position of Limerick GAA Development Officer. O’Sullivan defeated Monagea’s Gerry Philips by 195 votes to 80 votes.

Jerome O’Connell