Michael 'Babs' Keating has accused the Cork hurlers of lacking respect after Gerald McCarthy was forced to stand down as manager. Admitting that he had been on McCarthy's side throughout the 104-day dispute, the Tipperary legend made it clear that in the prevailing circumstances, he and 'his generation' would have supported any former player who was involved. "It was a question of respect and authority number one and next to that it would be the point of view that if you take the present Cork team from centre-field to any other position in the forward line, there is not any one of them who would be capable of lacing Gerald's boots. "That's why Gerald had such an uneasy time, to see a man of his calibre questioned by such inferiority. "It must be very hard and awful difficult that so many clubs turned against him. I don't mind the people who walked down Patrick Street because if the Cork County Board or Cork GAA was depending on those people to put their hands in their pockets they would have a lot of poor days in Cork." The former Tipp, Laois and Offaly manager argued that whether people 'liked it or not,' the system in place in Cork since the GAA was founded had delivered more All-Ireland titles than any other county in the country. "Those people from the junior clubs wouldn't have any idea of what it's like to go into a Cork senior hurling or football dressingroom and prepare to win an All-Ireland. "And if you happened to be a player like Gerald was - to face somebody like Mick Roche, Ger Henderson or Noel O'Dwyer - are you telling me that a junior club in West Cork would have any knowledge of that. "Or, for the eight years that I was managing Tipperary would anybody tell me that a junior club like Skeheenarinka or Ballyporeen or any of those interfere or want to interfere with the running of Tipperary hurling. The junior clubs have enough to do to run their little corner." Tweet

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