At the start of the week they were set to storm the Bastille. By the end of it the clubs of Cork had retreated as rapidly and as apologetically as King Kong wiping the window in that old Weetabix ad and the monarchs of Cork GAA remained on their throne, carrying on as if nothing had happened at all.

It wasn't so much that the executive had had their Weetabix as they had Gerald McCarthy's resignation statement in their hand. In that statement McCarthy would refer to the players' capacity to "raise the temperature by carefully choreographed public events" but arguably no move in this whole sad saga was more carefully and successfully choreographed than the release of that very resignation notice. The same day the board had scheduled the consultative meeting for had coincided with the day Gerald McCarthy returned from a sabbatical abroad and offered his resignation.

It was a powerful statement, in tone and impact. There was no mention of 169-17 in Nemo, 193-0 in Maryborough House or the couple of thousand shoppers who had taken their business the previous Sunday to Páirc Uí Chaoimh. Instead McCarthy deflected all the attention to three strikes, one death threat and a funeral.

It was the letter of a proud, angry and hurt man, and much of that anger and hurt is understandable. Even though a dispute of this nature was always going to attract a lunatic fringe, the revelation that McCarthy's life had been threatened is a shocking departure and a nadir in GAA history which has appalled everyone. But McCarthy had no monopoly in pain in this whole saga – players from both the '09 but especially the '08 panel have also received abusive letters and phone calls too – and for him to play the funeral card was both blow below the belt and after the bell.

In his statement McCarthy referred to "the apparent advice" that players should not attend his mother's funeral, a "lack of human warmth" which "devastated" his family, though they were grateful to the five members of the panel that "ignored" that "advice". But the reality is that those five players – Joe Deane, Ronan Curran, Kieran 'Fraggy' Murphy, Brian Murphy and Cian O'Connor – didn't ignore any advice or team protocol because no instruction to boycott the funeral was issued.

The morning after the Cork 2009 panel had lost to Tipperary in Thurles, the 2008 panel awoke to the news Gerald McCarthy's mother had passed away. Their 10 player reps organised a conference call at which it was quickly agreed their meeting with the clubs scheduled for that night should be cancelled out of respect. The matter of whether to go to the funeral en masse took considerably longer. They were damned if they went and damned if they didn't; it was a matter of which would cause least offence. The general consensus was that if they all went, it could come across as inflammatory, insincere and insensitive, transforming the event into a point-scoring circus; whatever about how Gerald himself would perceive it – and he'd viewed 10 players meeting him in the Imperial Hotel hours before his reappointment as intimidatory – the presence of 30 of them could upset and distract other attendees. And so it was decided – they wouldn't be going as a group but as individuals they were free to go while the group would send a mass card. As it turned out that card was never sent. When McCarthy raised in the Cork Airport negotiations with Croke Park the players' attendance rate at the funeral, Paraic Duffy called John Gardiner and Donal Óg Cusack in to explain their rationale to McCarthy. The players duly did but when they made mention of the mass card McCarthy told them not to bother sending it.

The players were on the back foot as it was. Just before Jerry O'Sullivan had read out Gerald's statement, his top table had also dragged up the energy drinks sponsorship controversy. Although that deal had fallen through before this current standoff, and although it could be argued that the board as much as the players jeopardised the deal, the very mention of it, combined with Gerald's aspersions about their "human warmth", meant on the night the players' stock had fallen dramatically. Once again the executive had reassumed the very essence of power – agenda control – and since then it is one they have not yielded.

Though the clubs on Tuesday did express some concern, even anger, about the board's modus operandi, the executive didn't so much skilfully kick such concerns out of touch as bat them out of the park. Frank Murphy's contract? The matter of all full-time Páirc Uí Chaoimh employees was being looked at by a sub-committee consisting of the board chairman, vice-chairman and the treasurer, straight out of the manual that says the best people to look into the police are the police.

The special convention that all those clubs had called for? Ah, well, Frank Murphy argued, there was no need for a special convention now; all those requests related to the impasse over Gerald McCarthy's management and Gerald was no longer manager. It was yet again a selective interpretation, the equivalent of some FAI official claiming in 2002 that there should be have been no Genesis report on the basis that "sure Saipan and the World Cup is all over now". The Cloyne motion also never made it onto the agenda. As far as the executive was concerned, there was simply a greater need for consultation with the clubs. Otherwise they had done nothing wrong throughout this whole dispute.

Their handling of that interim manager issue underlined just how little the board has done to settle matters with the players. On Wednesday Seán Óg Ó hAilpín had intimated Frank Murphy's position was a matter for the clubs and that in the interim the players would be willing to explore a way they could "work together closely". On Thursday, John Gardiner contacted chairman Jerry O'Sullivan, informing him of Donal O'Grady's availability as interim manager until the end of the league if needed be. O'Sullivan told Gardiner that was fine but he needed to get a proposal from the floor. Gardiner later secured that in the form of his Na Piarsaigh delegate Liam Moynihan and informed O'Sullivan of that development, but on the assumption that it was confidential and without the knowledge that the board would be proposing John Considine and his under-21 management team as an alternative.

What happened next was what Bob Ryan might call "Cork democracy" in action. After Moynihan had outlined that, given Cork's position in the league, what was needed a proven manager who knew most of the players well, O'Sullivan let it slip that it was John Gardiner that had informed him of O'Grady's availability. He didn't need to say that this was the same John Gardiner who had criticised those same delegates for their propensity to flip-flop and follow the direction of the top table. Then O'Grady's candidacy was opposed by Sarsfields delegate Denis Hurley, claiming that he would not be a unifying figure. Then Hurley's own clubman John Considine was proposed.

It was an astonishment development. Not only did neither Gardiner nor O'Grady know about Considine's candicacy, Considine didn't even know himself. Though Considine's name had been touted in the infamous process to find a manager last autumn, O'Grady's had also been briefly mentioned. When Bob Ryan admitted at one point in that process that Gerald McCarthy was merely "the second best man" for the job, he was asked by one of the player reps who was the best. O'Grady, Ryan admitted. Now though, Considine was the recommendation of Ryan and his fellow officers. So, in a secret ballot, the man who didn't even know he was up for nomination registered twice many votes as the man who beat Brian Cody and Kilkenny by eight points in his last game as Cork coach.

Considine could well prove to be an inspired choice, either as in interim or long-term manager. He was coach to the All Ireland-winning minor team of 2001 which Gardiner starred for. A UCC lecturer in economics, he is a highly intelligent man. Yesterday, after the 2008 panel had their last session together, Considine met with Gardiner and relayed to him his desire that Seánie McGrath and Jerry Wallis stay on as the team's physical trainers and that valued members of the backroom team from O'Grady, John Allen and McCarthy's time be brought in. He could well be, to use Hurley's term, a unifying force, a dark horse in the tradition of O'Grady himself back in 2002.

But there are major questions about how the board conducted that meeting on Thursday. Given that the interim manager will be in pole position to take on the job on a permanent basis and the clubs' support of the Cloyne motion, there is a case that the clubs should have been asked whether or not to appoint O'Grady. The board clearly weren't going to take that risk.

The clearest warning sign that it's business as usual down in Páirc Uí Chaoimh has been the conduct of Central Council delegate Bob Honohan. At a press conference after Tuesday night's meeting with the clubs, Jerry O'Sullivan was asked if there was any resentment among his executive towards the players and whether the two could have a working relationship in the coming year. "I would genuinely say there is no ill-will towards any player from anybody on the executive," O'Sullivan claimed. "Those lads are adults as well, you have your rows, you have your disputes, you get on with it, what's past is past and we'll drive on from here." Yet on Thursday night Honohan couldn't resist dragging up the funeral issue and calling for the 2008 players to explain themselves. Worse, he went unchecked by the same Jerry O'Sullivan. After the 2002 saga, the board acted in a contrite, conciliatory manner which ultimately was the foundation of Cork's success over the following four years. This time some members of the executive are clearly having difficulty leaving the past in the past and driving "on from here".

The signs were there on Tuesday. Two days before subjecting O'Grady to the humiliation of a vote, O'Sullivan had a few pop shots at John Allen's style of letting the players having such a say. This about a man who won Cork's last All Ireland, this in a week when the country is in the grips of rugby fever triggered by another Cork coach with a player-centred approach. But then, this is nothing new. Four of Cork's last seven All Ireland-winning coaches have now been humiliated by the board – Justin McCarthy, Billy Morgan, Allen, now O'Grady. Like Gerald, they're dispensable as long as the untouchables remain.

Christy Cooney was apparently in Abu Dhabi when he stated on Friday that the Cork crisis was "sorted" and that "the relationship between the county board and the players will get strong" but you'd have to wonder were his true whereabouts closer to Timbuktoo. The executive continue to use the energy drinks issue against the players without any attempt to resolve it; as O'Grady has often said, it and the 2002 agreement need to be clarified and agreed on once and for all.

There is little the players can now do to put manners on the executive. They handed that authority over to the clubs and there is a real chance the clubs will shirk that responsibility. The board have calculated that if they get the next manager right, they'll get the clubs off their back and Cork can roll on like it always has, from board meeting to meeting, convention to convention, and if needs be, strike to strike.

But the clubs have to ask themselves if that is good enough. Either they mobilise and revolt, otherwise the executive will never reform, let alone resign.

You think back to those epic comebacks against Galway and Clare last summer and how the most natural thing was for both parties to shake hands after the loss to Kilkenny and leave it at that. But it wasn't to be. Instead we had to put up with Donal Óg and Gerald going back on forth with Marian Finucane on the airwaves while the instigator of the whole dispute never uttered a word in public at all.

That was the greatest travesty of all. For all their differences, Gerald and Donal Óg should always have had Thurles.

kshannon@tribune.ie