Cork were stunned by Tipperary in the All-Ireland final on Sunday and Joe Brolly has taken aim at Dónal Óg Cusack over the Rebels’ players’ strikes
Joe Brolly and Dónal Óg Cusack
Joe Brolly has launched an attack on Dónal Óg Cusack over the Cork players’ strikes, describing them as “the most grotesque thing I’ve ever seen in my life as a GAA person”.
The former Derry player was responding to the Rebels’ stunning All-Ireland final defeat to Tipperary over the weekend when he referenced the strikes during the early 2000s.
The initial strike in 2002 centred on player welfare and rights, resulting in manager Bertie Óg Murphy’s resignation, whilst in 2009, Gerald McCarthy stood down as manager.
Brolly, now residing in Mayo, argued there is a significant distinction between the Westerners’ failings in All-Ireland finals and what unfolded for Cork on Sunday.
Speaking on his Free State Podcast, he said: “This is different. This is carnage. This is a f***ing wasteland of dreams. The first thing the Cork players will be saying this morning, I think, will be… it will take them a while to come out of the numbness and genuine f***ing horror of this… will be what the f*** were our management doing?”, reports the Irish Mirror.
“So now you’ve got this dynamic of ‘can we trust this management, is this management at the level that is required for us’ and that of course is the road to disaster as well.”
Brolly continued by suggesting that the Rebels ‘have never recovered’ from the strikes many years ago as he targeted Cusack.
“They were a team that were renowned as the Rebels throughout Ireland, they had given us some of the greatest hurlers that had ever played the game, they had great football teams and then all of a sudden they became like a trade union,” he added.
“Dónal Óg, the senior sort of trade union chair, shuttling in and out of meetings with the GAA.”
He continued: “You’ll recall the strike, which was just the most grotesque thing I’ve ever seen in my life as a GAA person, as a GAA volunteer.
“So they reaped the devastation of that and the great Seán Óg (Ó hAilpín) has since spoken about his disappointment in himself that he went along with it.
“So they got over that, they got through that very, very recently and now they’ve got this team playing like a Cork team and they’ve got everything going for them.
“They’ve no individual weaknesses, brilliant free taker, I mean even their free taker ultimately melted down. Missed an easy free at the start of the second half that would have put them seven up. Where do they go from here?”.
Dónal Óg Cusack(Image: ©INPHO/Oisin Keniry)
Cusack had previously revealed he harboured no regrets regarding the 2009 strike, telling the Irish Examiner: “Gerald was doing his best – he wanted to do his best.
“He was a great Cork player, but we felt there was better management propositions out there.
“When it was becoming pretty apparent what was ahead of us, myself and John (Gardiner) said we need to go and talk to Gerald face-to-face and tell him what was going on. So, we told him the story, told him that the players didn’t have confidence in him.
“Gerald made it clear to us that night that he wasn’t going anywhere.
“We went back to our players and said, ‘This is the choice that we have. What do you want to do?'”.
“I think it was unanimous that the players would go on strike.
“I regret anybody got hurt in it. I regret Gerald had to be in the position he had to be in, because the fight was between the players and the board, yet the board knew exactly what they were doing.
“But in terms of regretting what we did? The only regret I have is that we didn’t give them half enough of it, that when we had our foot on their chests that we should have went all the ways.”
Nevertheless, Ó hAilpín confessed in 2020 that he harboured regrets about the industrial action.
“When I start looking in reflection, that is one thing I do regret, the casualties and the fact that people had to step down,” he revealed to The Sunday Game.
“After that, the players got the demands that they were looking for. I don’t think that strike would have been so highlighted if we didn’t win; if we didn’t back that up with the ’04 and ’05 wins, we would have been the laughing stock of the nation. At least those actions were justified.
“It was bad enough going through one, then there was another one in 2007, which involved the hurlers and footballers. Life would have been much easier if we’d stopped at that.
“Then, there was the worst one which was in ’09. Probably, that’s the one where there’s still aftermath to this day. The biggest casualty out of that was Gerald McCarthy – probably one of, if not the greatest Cork great, having to step down.”
He added: “There’s not a day goes by when I don’t think back to then and what could have been done differently.
“There’s certain actions that in hindsight… I can’t speak for other players at that time but I know that I would have said some stuff that in proper reflection that I was best to just keep my mouth shut.
“My view is that you had one party, the playing group, who were looking to go one way, and you soon realise that the biggest power broker in that situation is the county board. They didn’t want to go that way with us. They had their own ways about how the association should be run.
“We were just going two poles apart completely. When you have two camps entrenched in their own beliefs, it was only going to lead to ringside tickets in Las Vegas. The aftermath was filthy, callous and cold.”