Whelan Drives another wedge and all isnt well in the capital and last Monday's secret meeting of the Dublin football panel has done little to buld confidence.
Mickey Whelan aired his views of the Dublin squad, who he accused of being fancy dans and too fond of nites out. With Ryan and Whelan gone and the likes of Cullen, Sherlock, Keaney and others on the way, Gilroy has some serious rebuilding to do after dismantling the current squad. MIckey Whelan has few friends in the camp...a long winte rof discontent ahead......
And now to the most intriguing row of the week.........Harte v Cavanagh......if there i sone way not to make yourself popular with your squad it is to undermine the credibility of one of its true leaders and one of the country's finest talents.
Shoulder remembers last summer of 2008 well. A close spy in Tyrone told me of a rumoured mutinous meeting of Tyrone players, many of whom had had enough of Mickey Harte and his style of management....the Stephen O'Neill row had been caused by a business dispute between the manager and his star forward who was shooting the lights out at club level. Harte had let O'Neill down was the rumour. Others claimed it was a misunderstanding.
Players were not happy and it was time for Harte to go many felt. A small Tyrone crowd was expected to travel to Louth for a uninviting qualifier tie and Tyrone were licking their wounds afer defeat to Down.
One man stood up for the uni browed one and came out publicly in his favour. Cavanagh asked for people to give Harte time, that he was the man for the job and the only man to lead Tyrone...."give him time and he will prove you wrong" Cavanagh said and the Moy man declared that Tyrone would still be a force....nobody else did and the bookies had the Red Hands at 12 or even 16/1. Tyrone beat Louth and the rest is histroy but isnt it amazing how time heals and winning hides it all......
Mickey Harte was very foolish to undermine Cavanagh and raise questions about his moral fortitude. The same Cavanagh who kicked the majority of the crucial scores in 2008 in a player of the season campaign......wasn't Sean allowed a bad day and to feel under the weather just once and did Harte need to put that in writing and forever cloud the successes of one of his main men????
Munster Says NO!
I like Jimmy O'Gorman, and anyone who meets the Desie head of the Munster Council could not but.
What a nice man who only wants good for the GAA and Munster. But Jimmy has it all wrong. There is no future of provincial championships and tradition and sentiment need to be ditched if the GAA is to drive forward.
Munster hurling final day is special...as is a trip to Kilarney for a Munster football final. But the reality is you cannot develop hurling with two provincial championships and only 11 or 12 really competitive hurling counties with five of the top 10 in one province.....it just doesnt make any sense.