GAELIC GAMES/Cork Strike:Seán Moran on another eventful evening for Cork GAA, when the footballers withdrew their services while the hurlers agreed to resume talks with county officers.

The Cork county footballers have joined their hurling counterparts on strike. At a meeting attended by Joe Deane and Mark Landers, the footballers decided to follow the hurlers' example in withdrawing their services until further notice.

In a statement, Cork captain Colin Corkery said that they shared the same issues as the hurlers with the exception of the team management question.

The two panels will now be jointly represented in negotiations with the Cork county executive.

The decision of the footballers comes as something of a surprise, given the movement at Tuesday night's county board meeting towards a resolution of the hurlers' grievances.

On another eventful evening in Cork GAA, both county panels met to consider their position in the light of Tuesday night's county executive meeting, which adopted a conciliatory approach to the hurlers's demands.

There is, however, still an amount of distrust in the air as the county board's response to those demands hasn't changed significantly in that a degree of ambiguity surrounds them despite the obvious concessions made since the hurlers went on strike last Friday.

In a statement last night the hurlers made a number of points. The main one was that they were willing to resume talks with the board. "We are going back into negotiations," was the response, "and taking the county board at their word even though we have received nothing in writing. The withdrawal of services stands."

The players were, however, at pains to reject a statement read to Tuesday night's executive meeting in which the outgoing selection committee denied a number of the players' criticisms. "We stand over every statement that we have made in the process so far."

There was some bad feeling at the fact that the selectors had used their departure to impugn the players' allegations, all of which they maintain are true.

The meeting with the county executive isn't expected to take place immediately but is likely within the next week. Earlier in the day there had been a generally positive response to the concessions made by the county executive. Although the resignation of the county hurling selectors had not been one of the players' demands, the panel had at the same time expressed its desire not to have to play under the outgoing management committee.

Consequently the county board decision to accept the resignation of the three selectors, Pat McDonnell, John Meyler and PJ Murphy who stepped down, was welcomed as a thaw in the frosty relations between the players and executive.

The simultaneous decision by county secretary Frank Murphy to decline his club Blackrock's nomination as selector helped clear the decks of the outgoing selection committee whose coach Bertie Óg Murphy had resigned over two months previously.

"It showed that there was movement towards our concerns," was the response of one hurler yesterday.

Of even more significance - and recognised yesterday as such by the hurlers - was the county board's ground-breaking decision to change the nature of selection committees in future. This means that whoever is appointed as coach for 2003 will have considerably more powers than any predecessor.

Contrary to reports, it was never intended that the hurling panel's representatives meet the county officials yesterday. The first step was for the players to meet amongst themselves but with the intention of resuming discussion with the county officers.

The footballers had intimated early yesterday that they hadn't been greatly impressed with the events of the previous evening and were suspicious of the ambiguity in some of the board's responses.

Obviously the new arrangement on selectors has no impact on the footballers who are not in dispute with Larry Tompkins's management.

It does make a difference for the hurlers, with the coaching job now much more attractive. There has been speculation that some of the big names in the county might consider the position.

In yesterday's Evening Echo, one player this morning endorsed former manager Jimmy Barry-Murphy. "He was a great manager when he was there before," he said. "He worked diligently over a few years to win an All-Ireland with Cork."