The 'Semplegate Saga' was a prime illustration of how lack of communication and consultation has stoked resentment among players, writes Jack O'Connor.

I watched some hurling at the weekend. A huge part of the attraction of Gaelic games is the passion displayed by the people involved, players, mentors, managers and supporters. It's genuine, it's authentic and it's very Irish. It was so evident last Sunday in the Gaelic Grounds, where the supporters and players were feeding off each other. It spilled over a little bit near the end when the delirious Limerick supporters invaded the pitch, but it was a magical thing to watch.

The same passion drives amateur players to unbelievable levels of commitment, far beyond what you would get in a professional game.

In professional sport, where money is king, cheating and cynicism become widespread and ingrained in the culture.

In hurling and football we still have so much that is authentic and natural.

I enjoyed watching Richie Bennis so animated and passionate on the sideline and then so open and natural to the press afterwards. He wasn't doing a Jose Mourinho, calculating the weight of every word, trying to pressurise referees and opposing managers with each sentence. In fact Ritchie nearly strangled Babs in a bear hug straight after the second draw.

And Babs of course can be very entertaining himself. I'm not sure sometimes how entertaining his players find him when he speaks about them not reaching the standards of players he either played with or managed back in the glory days, but for the punter he is great value.

Gerald McCarthy wasn't putting on an act either after the defeat to Waterford. He was passionately defending his players because he thought they had been wronged.

I think he had a valid point. While discipline is a big problem in the GAA at the moment, I think the core issue is respect. Or the lack of it.

The GAA authorities demand respect yet the feeling of many players and mentors is that this is a one-way street. They are being treated like amateurs but have professional standards demanded of them. The problem with respect is that players and managers are carrying chips on their shoulders a lot of the time. They feel that they are the ones making the association tick. Yet a huge amount of their contact with the upper levels of the association will be negative.

I know from my job as a teacher and from working as an intercounty manager that respect isn't something you get just by issuing a statement demanding it. You earn it and it comes automatically.

There is a sense in which players feel they are already giving far more respect to the GAA than they get back from it. Their fate is being decided in back rooms without the players side of the story being heard. I always feel that communication and consultation would defuse a lot of anger and resentment.

There is no doubt that in the "Semplegate Saga", as it has become known, the players needed to be brought in at the start. Their version of events had to be listened to and considered.

Instead, they were tried and sentenced in absentia. Who put the GAA authorities in the dock for failing to properly organise the teams' arrival on the field?

Cork have made an art form out of preparing properly for games. To suggest that they decided to go out and cause trouble minutes before a big game is absurd. Were the referee and officials all on the field before the two teams came out?

If your own performance in staging the game was poor, surely you cannot demand professional standards of other people, especially at a time when they are pumped up and under stress.

The issues involved should have been sorted out in the days immediately after the game no matter how inconvenient that was for committee members.

It was needlessly upsetting for players to have their fate hanging in the balance for three or four weeks with the media attention rumbling on. And all this at a time when they were trying to train for a championship match, a game they didn't even know if they could play in.

I'm convinced that if the Semple Stadium people had their act together in the first place the incident would not have happened. And when it did happen, if the referee and officials had been on the spot and dished out a few yellow cards at the time the entire saga would have been avoided.

Lastly, given the trouble actually did happen, if the GAA's disciplinary procedures were more effective and streamlined much stress could have been avoided.

The GAA's justice system has to be cooler, swifter and more dispassionate. It seems to respond to the media's level of outrage at things.

The fact there were children looking on in Thurles has been used as a stick to beat the players with.

Does anyone think for a minute that players about to go to battle even saw the children there?

Does anyone think that men like Seán Óg and Donal Óg and others don't do sterling, unseen work with kids every week of their lives as club players?

Does nobody realise that in the situation in which the players found themselves, through poor organisation by the GAA itself, self-preservation is the instinct that takes over.

The culture of club and county board officials instinctively looking for loopholes with which to get their own players off is the real problem the GAA needs to address.

From the bottom up (how many of us haven't gently persuaded a referee to change a straight red to two yellows in a report of a club match?) the culture needs to change, but so too do the structures and rule books that encourage the culture.

I'm all for people defending their men if the punishment doesn't fit the crime, but getting people off on silly technicalities leaves a bad taste.

Meanwhile, on the pitch it is getting tougher and tougher for the honest player. We have a phenomenon creeping into our games of players being ridiculed if they kick a wide or being roughed up when the referee is at the far end of the pitch. This behaviour should be an automatic yellow card but invariably the wind-up merchant ends up the winner and the player who retaliates takes the fall.

This leads to huge frustration for those trying to play in the right spirit. I remember Ruud van Nistelrooy getting a vicious reaction from Arsenal players when he missed a penalty for Manchester United a few years ago. It was ugly and more unedifying than seeing a county-board official sniffing for a loophole.

Players endure all that and the lack of respect from the top down. Surely they deserve better. Surely a player's previous record should to be taken into consideration.

If we don't want these endless unseemly searches for loopholes and technicalities why not offer the incentive of leniency for players with good records, players who plead guilty and take their punishment?

Seán Óg Ó hAilpín has been a model GAA player for many years. In fact he is an example for young people in more ways than one. Is alienating and humiliating a player like Seán Óg in the best interests of the GAA?

Cork's record of having one player sent off in 40 years of championship hurling is unbelievable. Surely that counts for something.

I am convinced a rap on the knuckles, a warning as to future conduct and a review of the procedures in place on the day in Semple Stadium would have been sufficient. Their own overreaction has backfired on the GAA and the plea for respect won't work until they get their own house in order.

Agus Rud Eile . . .

Talking of passion, there will be no shortage of that in evidence in Killarney on Sunday.

Last year Cork swept into Killarney and took us by surprise with their passion. They were hugely motivated and played with a far greater intensity than we did.

We eventually reeled them in but they took us to a replay in Páirc Uí Chaoimh, where they finished us off.

We'd beaten them by 13 points in the All-Ireland semi-final the previous year and the memory of that hurt drove them on.

The shoe is on the other foot now. Kerry will have plenty of their own motivation this year. Pat O'Shea won't want the old enemy to get the better of him in his first big game on home turf in Killarney. And for the Kerry players, last year in Páirc Uí Chaoimh will still be fresh in the memory. Kerry will match Cork for passion this time.

The challenge is channelling the passion the right way, going to the line without crossing it. In the present climate, with Croke Park keen to impose authority, that line divides intensity from stupidity.

Players have to have their mind made up before the game; they have to keep the ceann at all times.

One moment of stupidity and all those months of weights, ice baths and living the life of a monk go out the window.

The scenic route doesn't look too attractive this time either - too many sharks in that water.

There's a lot said about whether the provincial championships are redundant under the current structures. But in Killarney on Sunday there'll be no shadow boxing. That's what summer is all about.