Mediator may not be silver bullet to fix Galway crisis
Inside Track with John McIntyre
GALWAY GAA officials and beleaguered team manager Anthony Cunningham appear to be turning a deaf ear to the demands of the senior hurling squad or else an independent mediator would not have been called in to try and sort out an impasse which is threatening to leave a trail of bitterness in its wake.
Board officers and Cunningham may have heard the players’ statement about their lack of confidence in the Galway hurling management and their desire for new sideline personnel for 2016, but neither party are apparently heeding the message. It’s like as though there’s an expectation that the panel will eventually back down.
On the surface bringing in an outside mediator to help solve the dispute looks a reasonable decision, but only if there is significant common ground between the two parties involved. On all known information, the Galway senior hurling panel remain steadfast in its opposition to Cunningham continuing as team manager and, against that background, this latest turn of events has the potential to only polarise the current stand-off.
GAA officials in the county have already been left in no doubt about the mood of the players, but with County Board Chairman Noel Treacy an influential ally of the team management, the obvious scenario has not unfolded after Cunningham losing the dressing room in the wake of guiding Galway to a second All-Ireland final in four years.
Our sympathy for Cunningham in this respect has already been outlined and it does reflect a harsh judgement on his stewardship by the players, but leaving the sensitivities of the controversy aside and no matter how hard done by the St. Thomas’s clubman feels, what kind of atmosphere will be in the Galway dressing-room in 2016 if some sort of compromise is cobbled together?
The sanctioning of a mediator immediately cranks up the pressure on the players who have been putting on a very united front so far. With Galway involved in an exhibition game in Boston next month and also due to fulfil a fixture in the Railway Cup – it’s hard to credit that there’s another attempt to revive the inter-pro series after the paying public turned its back on the competition at least two decades ago – time isn’t as plentiful to solve the dispute as some would imagine.
It is now clear, however, that the County Board are prepared to stand behind their man and that Cunningham is also sufficiently motivated to fight his corner. Treacy’s role in all of this shouldn’t be underestimated. It was only on his casting vote that the Galway manager survived last year and though no one is suggesting that his relationship by marriage to team coach Eugene Cloonan is shaping his thinking, it hardly allows for a completely objective assessment.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.