‘It’s a little too early to say...’ That was the response of the revered Chinese Communist revolutionary and party leader Zhou En Lai at a banquet in Beijing when Nixon’s Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, asked him what he thought were the consequences of the French Revolution, recalls An Fear Rua...

As the consequences of the revolutionary use of the guillotine by the Cork 2008 hurling panel and their associates, the sans culottes of the Cork clubs, ripple out, it would take all the skills and patience of even a Zhou to predict where it will all end.

Wise man that he was, Zhou might likely remind them of this: Those who so enthusiastically filled the tumbrels of Paris with aristocrats in 1789, and jeered as they trundled their way to the Place de la Concorde, soon enough felt the cold kiss of Madame La Guillotine on the nape of their own red necks. The downtrodden Irish peasantry of the time put it succinctly: ’Filleann an feall ar an bhfealltóir... The harm returns to the wrongdoer...’ Confucius may even have said something similar. ‘Cork-a’ almost rhymes with ‘karma’.

One aspect of the dispute that intrigued AFR is the false dichotomy posited between the young, athletic and idealistic hurlers of the 2008 Panel and the tired, aging, cynical ‘suits’ of the County Board. For example, it was frequently cited in the columns of the back page of the ‘Irish Times’ Sports Supplement ‘iv a’ Sahurda'. Anyone familiar with the GAA, even the Cork GAA, God save us, would know that this was a caricature of reality. But then, there are always fairweather fans and opportunistic journalists who will declare 'no contest' as between jerseys and suits and who will follow and back players without thinking through the real issues.

The truth is that the vast majority of the GAA’s ‘suits’ – or ‘blazers’ if your prefer the Anglo Saxon term – are themselves former young, athletic and idealistic hurlers and footballers. Think of Nickey Brennan ... Paddy Buggy... Con Murphy ... Padraig Ó Fainín... Liam Mulvihill... Donie Nealon... Think of the committee members and mentors in your own club and county. They didn’t drop their idealism or commitment to the GAA on the last day they doffed a player’s jersey and donned a suit.

Everyone makes the contribution to the GAA that their age and health allows. We expect twenty year olds to play hurling or football. We expect fifty year olds to run committees, raise funds and – yes- select and train teams. No sensible club would throw a fifty year old in at full forward in, say, a county final against the neighbouring parish. Neither would they despatch a mere stripling to a County Board meeting to challenge a disciplinary ruling against, say, the club’s leading inter-county player.

It is almost like a cycle of nature in Dis Great Assoooosheeeayshun Of Ours that you start off as a player and you end up as a referee or a committee member or a selector. That’s what Time does to you. The ’Ógs' of today won’t be long becoming the ’Seans' of tomorrow. It doesn’t mean that one is any better than the other, or knows more or less than the other, or is more or less concerned about the interests and on-field success of their county. But there is another old Irish saying that holds a modicum of truth: ’Tagann ciall le haois...’ Positing a campaign – worst still, plunging Cork GAA into crisis and the GAA nationally not too far behind - on the basis that ‘players know best’ runs counter to all our GAA experience.

If there is a useful lesson at all to be plucked from the debris that is now Cork GAA, it is that players - some, if not all - need to take more interest and get involved in their clubs and the administration of their county even while they are still playing. They will be listened to and respected but must also understand that they can't win every argument and vote. Stow the media megaphones and take up quiet, patient diplomacy instead. It's a surer - and fairer - way of making progress on legitimate player issues at club or county level.

What has happened in Cork is nothing less than a revolutionary upheaval of the tried and working relationships that brought the GAA successfully through a hundred and twenty five years to date. The tectonic plates have shifted beneath our feet. The reverberations and aftershock will affect every club and county, and for years to come...