WITH a 100 word statement at midday on Thursday the management committee of the Galway County Board condemned itself to conflict. The purpose of the statement was to announce the imminent appointment of an unnamed mediator and, in other circumstances, such a development might have been interpreted as good news. In this case it signalled entrenchment.
The language was deliberately sunny. One sentence contained the words “cohesive”, “harmonious” and “positive”, as if smiling through gritted teeth. The pivotal message in paragraph two, however, was that the board wanted to build on the “progress and achievements” of the past year. Anthony Cunningham, the Galway manager, was entitled to embrace that sentiment as a nod or wink of endorsement.
Though the executive of the board is not entirely united behind Cunningham he enjoys the wholehearted support of the Galway chairman Noel Treacy; without it Cunningham’s position would be untenable.
Treacy is central to where this story stands. Thirteen months ago, when Cunningham reapplied for the job he had held for three years, the selection committee was split on their preferred candidate and Cunningham was reappointed only on Treacy’s casting vote. If that intervention wasn’t widely known Treacy was happy to broadcast it in an interview after the All-Ireland final in which he played a twin compliment to Cunningham and his own judgement.
“We are about 5% short of where we need to be to win an All-Ireland,” he said. “Anthony and his management team are the ones to lead us to that. I had to use my casting vote last year for him to stay in charge; the vote was 3-3 whether he should go or stay. The decision to keep him in charge was vindicated. We have made progress, a lot of progress.”
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On a point of information Treacy is related through marriage to Cunningham’s coach, Eugene Cloonan, who is a nephew of Treacy’s wife; however, there is no suggestion that his judgement has been influenced by that connection.
By its nature, mediation is a consensual process. It can only work if all parties are committed. The Galway hurlers were not consulted about mediation; they were informed on Thursday morning, before the statement was released. Croke Park were also informed though they won’t be playing any role in the process.
The other start-up premise in a mediation process is that both sides are open to a solution through compromise. In this case it is hard to see where that common ground exists: Cunningham wants to stay, an overwhelming majority of the players want him to go. That is a polar division.
Is it the belief of Cunningham and his supporters in the board that the players can be persuaded with changes to Cunningham’s management team? After two emphatic expressions of no confidence in the manager are the players prepared to resign from such a black-and-white conviction?
In standoffs such as this, mediation has been tried before. At the beginning of 2008 Kieran Mulvey, Chief Executive of the Labour Relations Commission, was asked by Croke Park to intervene in the second Cork players’ strike. He was joined a few weeks later by Paraic Duffy, in his first week as director-general of the GAA.
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Mulvey’s first attempt ended in stalemate in late January but he returned with Duffy in February and he eventually brokered a “binding resolution”. Among his recommendations was that Teddy Holland, the new Cork football manager, and his selectors should step aside. When they refused to do so the county board were obliged under the terms of the agreement to force them out of their positions.
That case, though, has more layers than this one. One of the fundamental issues, which had inflamed the players, was that the board had stripped the Cork managers of the power to pick their own selectors. Mulvey recommended the restoration of that power. That’s not an issue in Galway.
When trouble flared up again in Cork at the end of that year Mulvey didn’t return; instead Duffy and GAA President Christy Cooney did their best to facilitate a solution but were frustrated in their efforts.
With the Cork players there was very little doubt that they were prepared to dig in, just as they had done in 2002 and as they would do again in the winter of 2008/09 in the third Cork strike. Within the panel they built up a support system and a tight communications network; their leadership was strong, bullish and united. They were prepared to step out of the jersey, as they did in the early months of 2009, and they were determined not to blink.
How far are these Galway players prepared to go? One of the consistent criticisms levelled at this Galway team over the years was that they lacked leadership in crunch matches. That was true again in the second half of the All-Ireland final. Are the leaders in their dressing room absolutely united in their desire to remove Cunningham? There were doubts about two of them in the beginning. Have those players been nailed by their peers? You can’t be absolutely sure until the pressure comes on.
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Cunningham and the board have taken a gamble that the players are not prepared to go to the ends of the earth to win this argument. Looking at the age profile of the first 20 players in the squad there are some who simply can’t afford to take a year out, like most of the Limerick players did in 2010 when the board backed Justin McCarthy against their wishes.
But if they agree to return with Cunningham after making this stand, what confidence can they have in each other when the heat comes on in Croke Park again next summer?
There are no deadlines for a process like this but Galway are playing Dublin in a Super 11s match in Fenway Park in Boston in a little over four weeks’ time. Ten-thousand tickets were sold for the event within 24 hours of them going on sale and there is no question of Galway being scratched from the fixture. Can those Galway players travel to Boston with Cunningham as their manager?
During the last Cork dispute the letters page of the Irish Examiner was full of conflicting opinions. In February 2009 Billy Coleman from White’s Cross had this to say: “In every other team sport in the world if the manager loses the dressing room he walks. It’s as simple as that…”
That is still true.