Iâm reliably informed theyâre undecided. Doubting Thomases apparently.
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Youâd wonder if some of those players he has given a chance to really want him gone or if theyâre just following the leaders of the group. I canât imagine young Whelan for example, given a chance when not many other managers would have given him a chance really wanting him to leave
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Most players, especially younger players, just want to play and have little interest in politics. However they can be influenced if there are a few strong personalities involved. Obviously we donât know the full extent of whatâs going on but I would be surprised if all the younger players that have been given their chance by Cunningham now want him gone. They might be reticent to go against senior players though.
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Iâve no issue with the players wanting him gone. 2 AIâs fucked away. A train wreck last season.
Best of luck to him, but good luck Anthony.
Thatâs a bit unfair. Heâs got a county that hasnât won an All Ireland in 25 or so years to two All Ireland in 4 years. In most games there is only so much a manager can do. I would say of the hurling matches Iâve played in my life, some at a very high standard in less than 5% of those matches the manager has been to blame when we lost. It also doesnât help when some auld lad sneaks into your dressing room at half time to have a go at you. What do people think he should have done in the second half of this yearâs final to win the game?
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Thatâs the question. The game was there to be won and required the players, especially the senior players, to grab it by the scruff of the neck and win it. They didnât and now itâs managementâs fault, and by the way to rub it in we senior players didnât want Cunningham all year anyway so its truly not our fault. In other words, had we had another manager we surely would have won. I donât doubt the players intentions are good, but they are pointing fingers in the wrong direction here. If they want an AI medal then go out and win it when its there to be won (strangely enough like the man they are critical of did, twice in fact).
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Andy Smith shat himself against Mick Fennelley and now as a âsenior playerâ he wants the manager gone? Funny.
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Thatâs true. However, itâs the managerâs responsibility to ensure the correct attitude is there. The world and his dog knows that Galway hurlers are not resilient and are the most likely team in the planet to fold. Itâs an army of psychologists we need not a manager. If he couldnât motivate them for the most important half of hurling in the year, he has fuck all influence on them. No point keeping him there, itâs not like we can find 30 (27) new player.
I really hope Cunningham digs in and drags the shit out of this.
Ger Loughnane has called the players âpatheticâ.
http://www.rte.ie/sport/gaa/2015/1005/732453-reprots/
Incidentally, the spelling mistake in that URL 
Oh this one is going to drag on alrightâŚ
Barrel of teeth
Cunningham is digging in.
The Galway players have picked the wrong fight here.
Public perception is everything in these sorts of struggles.
The public perception of the Mayo players is that they are an extremely committed and honest group who have done everything in their power to win an All-Ireland. Theyâve won five Connacht titles in a row, have been to two All-Ireland finals and been consistent contenders for the last five years. Crucially, four of those were under James Horan and not Holmes and Connelly. The Mayo players have a serious amount of credit built up with the public in both Mayo and elsewhere, and the public perception is that they would not make such a move against the management without good reason.
The controversy over the process aurrounding the appointment of Holmes and Connelly and the perception of favouritism because of Connellyâs brother being the county board chairman there also worked in the playersâ favour.
The public perception of the Galway hurlers, on the other hand, is that of a squad where inflated egos and inter-club bitterness reign. Galway hurling has a long record of getting rid of managers in murky circumstances and falling flat on its face in the seasons afterwards. Thereâs always been a perception with the wider hurling public that the Galway hurlers are basically a shower of gutless fancy dans and the second half of the All-Ireland final did a lot to cement that again.
The perception of Cunningham is that he took over a consistently under-achieving team, organised them, instilled steel in them and got them closer to an All-Ireland than anybody since Cyril Farrell. Heâs also their first manager since Cyril Farrell to reach more than one All-Ireland final. The way the public sees it is that Cunningham has made Galway contenders despite having a lot of shit to deal with, and put in place the structure and the game plan to enable Galway to be in a position at half-time in the final where they should really have gone on and won the All-Ireland, and the players, and the players alone, bottled it.
Stories like Aidan Harteâs oulâ fella bursting into the dressing room also make a laughing stock of the players in the publicâs eyes and increase sympathy for Cunningham.
The timing of this heave is also disastrous, coming straight after what happened in Mayo.
All of the above means the public perception in this crisis is firmly behind Cunningham and against the players.
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- Bollox
- Who made you the arbiter of public perception?
Is this true? @KinvarasPassion? I said it to a Galway man who upon some research of the subject swears blind Harte never his seat at half time.
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Its a great story but by all accounts he wasnât in dressing room.
Can we name and shame the cunts on here who swore blind it to be true?
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The point is in regard to public perception. It doesnât matter whether the story is true or not, itâs in the public domain.
Much like the Kieran Donaghy one, which is also bullshit.