The difficulties experienced to date by the accomplished mediator Kieran Mulvey and the GAA's chief trouble shooter and now director general Páraic Duffy clearly indicate the depth of the rift in the Cork GAA.
Over the past two days the temperature has risen with the players' furious reaction to the county board's publication of selective details from the discussion process, which broke down on Wednesday night. It is to be hoped that the parties can turn their minds to resolving the dispute, preferably in time to save Cork's National League campaigns, although that looks a forlorn prospect at this stage.
At the heart of what has become an almost insoluble conundrum is the fact that there is justification on both sides of the argument. The county board was entitled to do what they did last October and November in removing the power to appoint selectors from Cork county managers. The problem is that, by any objective analysis, what they did was ill-advised and inconsistent with best practice. It was also a departure from a status quo that the players are convinced was agreed in the resolution of the 2002 dispute.
The players' over-hasty response was to threaten to withdraw from the football and hurling panels whereas the board further escalated the crisis by appointing a new football manager, Teddy Holland, under the new and disputed dispensation.
For all the arguments and allegations about player power no county can survive or thrive if the players are not happy with management. County boards may be reluctant to bow to pressure but eventually reality dictates that dressing-rooms have to be content.
Croke Park's patience with the Cork situation must be running thin. It is just over five years since a previous dispute threatened to bring about a similar situation before a resolution was reached.
No other county allows such a dysfunctional relationship to develop between its officials and county players. When the current impasse is broken - as it inevitably must be - there have to be mechanisms introduced to prevent any recurrence.
Ironically the work of Mr Mulvey and Mr Duffy has produced a memorandum that offers a great deal to the players for the future.
Few would argue with GAA president Nickey Brennan's plea yesterday for the sides to park their differences and just come to an interim solution for the eight months of this season. But, for that to happen, someone is going to have to take a step backwards.