CORK HURLING: TRENCH WARFARE is defined as a form of conflict where both combatants have fortified positions and the fighting lines are static - and that now clearly defines the latest conflict surrounding Cork hurling.

As neither the manager and the county board, in one trench, nor the current panel of players, in the other trench, showed any signs of advance yesterday, it looks like being another long, drawn-out battle before any peace deal is brokered.

If anything, the conflict worsened yesterday as manager Gerald McCarthy responded to claims made by Cork forward Ben O'Connor, the county's only All Star this year, that they were adamant in stating that not a single member of the current panel would play again as long as McCarthy remained in charge.

McCarthy, however, in a series of radio interviews, was equally adamant he had no intention of stepping aside as manager, having been unanimously ratified, earlier this month, for another two-year term as manager: "I don't see who or what gives them the right to suggest I shouldn't do it," he said.

"So, from that point of view, it's all very nasty now. I'll go forward from here in whatever way I can to do my job. If some players feel that they cannot play for me, and it certainly seems that way by some of their comments, so be it, let them walk away.

"From what I can see, players want an awful lot of the honour attached to appointing a manager, and maybe eventually appointing the team. Maybe next year they'll want to do that. So I'm doing this not just for myself, because there are lots of other things I would prefer to be doing right now, but I'm doing it for people that will come behind me. The way I look at this, if this bunch of players can do this to me, what could they do to other people?"

The Cork County Board, having given their full backing to the manager earlier this week, declined to comment further yesterday, but McCarthy was clearly looking at the bigger picture and warned the actions of the players was "going to endanger the whole future of Cork hurling" - and added that claims the younger members of the panel had been advised not to pursue the stance was a "downright lie".

"It seems to be cropping up forever and ever in Cork hurling of late, that when there's dissent, there's a strike. And if this isn't a strike, and I believe the players committed last year under Kieran Mulvey that they could not strike again in the future, that they'd have the power to walk away only. But this looks like a strike, it smells like a strike and if it does both those things I think it's a strike.

"Some players are certainly on the verge of retiring anyway I think and some players are thinking about it now that shouldn't be thinking about it, and it's a very, very personal thing to a player when he retires and I'm not going to interfere in that process. But, if players do decide to retire and walk away, that they don't want to be part of the Cork set-up, it beggars belief that a whole generation of young Cork hurlers are being dragged with them."

This latest crisis hinges on the claims and counter-claims on the process which led to McCarthy's reappointment. O'Connor, in an interview with yesterday's Irish Examiner, outlined why the players believe that process was not carried out in an acceptable manner: "Our understanding of that was that there would be a process. Well, there was no process. Our two guys went to the first meeting of the selection committee, were met by five county board members and our guys knew within 10 minutes that it was a total set-up and they were going to have no say.

"They (the five other committee members) proposed that Gerald McCarthy be reappointed for another two years and no one else was mentioned.

"They had already agreed it among themselves, it was a done deal. Our guys asked: 'where are the other candidates? Surely to God we're going to be interviewing a few people, given the performance over the last two years?' They were told, 'no, we're having the vote here now'. So where was the process? What say did we have in this?"

McCarthy had a slightly different slant: "My understanding of this whole process was that there were seven people, five from the board side and two players and that they held a total of five meetings. I believe at the first meeting they decided that they would get my standing on the situation as to whether I would allow my name go forward or not.

"I gave it some thought when they got back to me and I agreed to stand. They had a second meeting and that seemed to go down okay and it moved on to a third meeting but by the fourth meeting, where everything seemed to be okay earlier on, they took a change for the worst really and they felt that it must be said on the players part, that they probably felt from the start that the process that they wanted was something along the lines of interviews where four of five people would be asked are they interested in the job and that they be interviewed for it."

What is certain is that O'Connor's views on the crisis, and if they do represent the rest of the panel, appear strong enough to bring about a complete wipe-out of the current hurling panel: "This panel are ready to go the whole distance, we're ready to pull out, tell them to work away next year," he claimed.

"If there's a new management team after that, and if we're wanted back again, then no bother, but as it stands, we're having nothing to do with the current set-up."

Speaking from Australia, GAA president Nickey Brennan said the association would not be getting involved, unlike last year's impasse based around the football manager: "We're disappointed to hear about developments in Cork, but Croke Park will not be getting involved in the matter at all. It's a local matter for Cork and we'll leave it to them to deal with anything that emerges from it."