Civil unrest: Limerick's Ollie Moran felt the need to speak out

If you have tears, reader, prepare to shed them on behalf of Ollie Moran. If there's any one individual in Limerick hurling deserving of unqualified sympathy right now it's he. Fine hurler, great servant, recently departed the intercounty scene after 12 years of valiant soldiering in the green and white, a period during which there were innumerable occasions when it was neither popular nor profitable to do so.

Moran had every right to anticipate a trouble-free afterlife. More time to himself, a new baby to look after, maybe the occasional coursing meeting to attend. Limerick being Limerick, however, he found himself mentioned in the papers again during the week. Another saga on Shannonside and another group of bystanders, Moran among them, caught in the shrapnel. Just as soon as he thought he was out, they dragged him back in again.

Deep down, he may have suspected all along that such would be the case. One website was busy the other day canvassing its patrons as to whom – Justin McCarthy, the players or the county board - they supported "in the Limerick hurling controversy". Presumably it was a simple oversight that led to them omitting the word "latest" between "the" and "Limerick".

Moran, of course, retired. Brian Geary, Donal O'Grady, Seamus Hickey and Wayne McNamara did not. They left Justin McCarthy's panel. Therein lies an ocean of difference. Worse, Geary and O'Grady have long been pillars of the team while Hickey, though a relative newcomer, is mature beyond his years. These are not revolutionary agitators.

Their announcement was the cue for one national newspapers to regurgitate comments made last month by Moran following the revelation that McCarthy had carried out a major cull of his panel without bothering to tell the slew of players concerned that he had decided to press on without them: "I'm seething and shocked at the insinuation that those guys lacked commitment," Moran declared. "Ask any previous trainer or manager. All the guys named are totally committed, both to their club and county."

What's changed in the interim? Nothing other than that Damien Reale and James Ryan took to the picket lines in sympathy with their discarded colleagues and that Geary et al have followed in the same direction after last Wednesday's county board meeting gave the manager unanimous backing. At this rate of going, McCarthy is set fair for a place in the Guinness Book of Records. First he lost an All Ireland semi-final by 24 points, then he lost or deliberately mislaid more than half of his panel.

While none of the quartet was contactable in recent days, it's understood that their departure was prompted by the failure of the county board to convey certain concerns of the players to the team management. When it emerged that these concerns hadn't been passed on, the players concluded they were at nothing and decided to walk.

The theorists inform us that every failure is a failure of management. That this is a failure of communication screams to high heaven but, given the identity of the man in the eye of the storm, that doesn't come as a surprise. Four years ago, speaking to the media after Waterford's All Ireland qualifier defeat in Cusack Park, Justin stopped, walked away in mid-sentence and got onto the team bus. We in the media are quick to deplore various managers for speaking in platitudes, but platitudes imply at least some level of communication skills, not to mention a grasp of basic courtesy. Those Limerick folk who damned Waterford as a bunch of ingrates for getting rid of McCarthy last year may feel a pang of remorse.

At a rudimentary level there are comparisons to be made with the ongoing situation in Clare, but only at a rudimentary level. In Clare, as was evident at the county board meeting there last Tuesday week, the players have yet to articulate their case against Mike Mac with sufficient persuasiveness to carry the hurling public with them. In Limerick, by contrast, it's not the players who wanted the manager gone but the manager who wanted many of the 2009 championship panel gone – and in getting rid of them alienated a large proportion of the others. The Clare players have come across as silly, disorganised boys; their Limerick counterparts have come across as men driven to take the nuclear option by a manager who appears to believe everyone is out of step bar him.

It was to McCarthy's eternal credit that, seeing the writing on the wall in Waterford, he left with dignity and without fuss. This time around, in what is unquestionably his final intercounty job, one can understand why he may feel determined to stay put until or unless he's removed. And let's face it, the prospect of him remaining at the table and playing the hand he's created for himself is an apt one.

If any hurling county has needed a benevolent dictator for the past number of years (or decades, judging by Unlimited Heartbreak – see review pg16), Limerick is that county. Until such time as this messiah of bureaucracy emerges, the county board can at least put some lipstick on the pig by vowing to show leadership and get the current crisis resolved before the month is out.

emcevoy@tribune.ie