Clare's Davy O'Halloran says the Banner hurling squad are "too scared to stand up to" their manager, Davy Fitzgerald.
It was reported during the week by the The Clare Herald and The Clare Champion that O’Halloran and Nicky O’Connell had quit the Clare hurlers for the footballers.
This followed on from the the pair had been involved in a 'breach of discipline and refusing to participate in a three-week programme of physical training as a result', according to The Irish Times.
The Times also have an interview in this morning's edition with O'Halloran which is scathing of his treatment by Fitzgerald.
The paper states: 'On Friday it was revealed that following a disciplinary issue involving a small number of the Clare panel both Davy O’Halloran and Nicky O’Connell had left the squad. It’s now been revealed that the duo refused to fulfil their three weeks of punishment which they say isolated them from and humiliated them in front of their team-mates. They did so when they realised that a senior member of the squad was exempt from similar sanctions despite what they considered a more serious breach. This was not confirmed by the Clare management team.'
Fair to play to Davy O Halloran for having the courage to tell his story #respect
— Eddie Brennan (@NedzerB13) March 14, 2015
And O'Halloran, who was punished for being out socialising two days before their League opener against Galway, is quoted as saying in The Irish Times: "I had a strained hamstring so I wasn't able to train anyway so that’s why I was out, I definitely wouldn’t have been out if I could have featured against Galway. And I wasn’t drinking."
He continued: "Myself and Nicky O’Connell were out two nights before the Galway game and the two of us were actually injured at the time and we weren't drinking. We met one of our trainers out and he said he would say it back to the captain about us being out and we just said fair enough.
"Davy wasn't told until after the Cork game because they didn't want to tell him until after the two league games so they waited until we had our week's break.
“He then called a meeting on the Tuesday night in the dressing room, he called it out in front of everyone [the punishments].
O'Halloran (left) and Joe O'Dwyer of Tipperary - INPHO Lorraine O'Sullivan
“While all of this was happening another senior player told Nicky that he’d had a meeting with one of the selectors who told him he knew that he was drinking but he wasn't going to say anything about it.
“We just thought it was double standards, one rule for us and a different rule for someone else just because he was a pivotal part of the team and we weren't at the time basically.”
The Times added: 'Upon the pair’s decision to leave they wrote a letter for the captain to read out to the squad stating their rationale. This they claim was ripped up in front of the squad by Fitzgerald'.
"A lot of the lads aren't happy, see lads are too scared to stand up to him," O'Halloran says. "I just didn't see myself being there knowing that I was getting treated differently to another player – and if we were running around a pitch for three weeks we would have missed the whole league campaign and we wouldn't have had much of a hope of making it into a championship team."
The Irish Times say Clare management declined to comment.
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