MANAGERS:The boss of a county team has to not only justify himself to the county board, but also to the players in his charges. Where will it end, writes Seán Moran

FOR A position that is generally accepted not to have existed until the 1970s, the role of manager has become one of the most contentious aspects of the GAA’s close season. By now, controversies based on managerial appointments have become as perennial as the clock going back.

The past couple of weeks have shown this year to be no different. Although Cork is for once not the centre of attention in this respect there was recently a reminder that the county’s ability to make a melodrama out of these appointments is not a recent phenomenon.

The publication of the county’s most successful football manager Billy Morgan’s autobiography served as a reminder that even someone who months previously was on the verge of orchestrating a three-in-a-row All-Ireland success could be vulnerable to county board plotting.

As usual in Cork the attempt failed and having voted against Morgan as a selector, the board had to go looking for him to agree to come back after the predictable levels of uproar proved intolerable.

There is, however, a difference between botched coup attempts by administrators and the phenomenon that has become identified as players power in the wake of the Cork disputes this decade.

In Clare, the pressure on Michael McNamara to step down as senior manager will intensify and there are few in the county who believe he will be on the sideline next season – simply because the position becomes as untenable as a marriage in which one of the partners no longer wants to remain.

McNamara’s situation is unusual in that his credentials are distinguished and the first of his two years in charge was deemed a success. Within the county there is also a feeling the hurlers must take some of the blame for the disastrous season this year. But the central truth about any such conflict is that in an ailing team the manager is more dispensable than the players.

Across the border in Limerick Justin McCarthy has decided to off-load a number of players in response to what was ultimately a dismal championship even if the team reached an All-Ireland semi-final where it sustained a merciless beating from Tipperary.

This is a simple calculation. By implication McCarthy is pointing the finger of blame at the dropped players or at least stating that Limerick will be stronger in the future without them. The gambit stands or falls by whether the rest of the panel are willing to allow the manager to proceed with it.

That players can exercise such a decisive influence provokes strong feelings within the GAA. To some this is a breach of the association’s administrative structures, which ordain that county committees and executives should make these appointments with teams expected to get on with playing.

It is an unrealistic view in the modern games. The dynamics of the situation are governed by the GAA’s amateur status and the pressure to succeed on the field.

Players have to make profound commitments to stay on board with a modern intercounty panel. Their lifestyle is affected by social and personal sacrifices more appropriate to professionals but without the rest periods and money to compensate or the freedom to move on if they personally fall out with a manager.

What they do expect, however, in return for their commitment is that their chances of fulfilment on the field should be enhanced or at least not set back by the managers under whom they are expected to play.

The implications of this also affect administrators. Without money and contracts, players can’t be forced to play and in material terms they do not lose out by withdrawing from engagement with the county team.

Amateurism means that players choose those terms of engagement and if they become dissatisfied with a manager for whatever reason and in sufficient numbers that’s the end for the manager – in the vernacular, “losing the dressingroom”.

There isn’t anything new about the phenomenon in that players have refused to play for teams throughout the history of Gaelic games for reasons good and bad and although the Official Guide prescribes a penalty for this refusal that provision is clearly unenforceable without contract.

The GAA is currently considering a code of practice for the appointment of managers. The draft, which shortly goes before the association’s management committee, was leaked a couple of weeks ago and although it is procedural in nature it at least points the way to a more structured way of approaching the process. Managing the communications involved is an important part of that process and would undermine the overt politicking and Machiavellian manoeuvres that occasionally accompany these appointments.

Proper, transparent practice in turn would help create and sustain confidence in the procedures among players and make the controversies surrounding managers and their appointments more controllable and less likely to happen.