Mike McNamara survived last night’s county board meeting and is still in place as Clare hurling manager, although the dispute looks far from over as the players' letter is read out to delegates.
A letter of dissatisfaction written by the players, which supposedly wasn’t read out last week as it wasn’t signed, was read out to delegates at last night’s meeting after being signed by all.
As reported in The Irish Examiner, when the meeting came to ‘correspondence’, secretary Pat Fitzgerald read the letter, of which he said there was only one.
It read: ‘A chara, The Clare senior hurling panel of 2009 would like to give our views of management. On a secret ballot on November 1, one player expressed confidence in the management team, 26 expressed no confidence; while the decision on examining the issue with regard to the management of teams rests with our clubs and the county board delegates and county board executive, we would wish our views regarding the Clare senior hurling team be communicated to the relevant decision-makers.’
Chairman Michael O’Neill went on to say he had spoken ‘to seven or eight players’ to find out exactly what the problem was and that ‘they gave me their views in confidence, and it will remain that way.
He continued: 'When I was told of the meeting (between the players), and the result of the vote, myself and Pat O’Donnell proceeded to meet the manager, and discussed things with him.
'We didn’t have a successful year last year, and we as a board take some responsibility for that. There are also some questions for management, and Mike acknowledged as much at the last meeting – we all make mistakes.
‘The result of that vote was disappointing to me, I think it was a case of putting the cart before the horse, and it undermined the position I had taken at the last meeting to try and resolve the crisis. It was a bad year, but you don’t then go into a hole and bury yourself, you come out, work your way forward.’
O’Neill then went on to confirm that the board still had confidence in McNamara as manager.
However when delegates asked for the reasons the players were unhappy, O’Neill said: ‘If I were to tell ye everything that was said to me we’d be here ‘til the early hours of the morning. And I don’t want to go down the blame-game road.’
