Former Limerick captain Damien Reale has turned his quit inter-county hurling in protest at the current management regime's failure to address the 'problems of the past'.
Limerick boss Justin McCarthy last week made the controversial decision to axe 12 players who played Championship hurling this year for next season's campaign.
Reale, though, believes that McCarthy and his backroom staff must accept their share of the responsibility for the county's current predicament.
"Last Wednesday, there was a meeting between the 19 remaining players on the panel, Justin and his management team, and the county board, represented by chairman Liam Linehan and secretary Mike O'Riordan. Justin was talking for an hour and ten minutes, but there was no mention of the problems we'd had all year, just talk of moving forward. Everything was swept under the carpet," he told the Irish Examiner.
"And I was sitting there thinking - 'Surely, to move forward, you have to rectify the problems of the past?'
"I don't want to criticise Justin, or his methods, but we got a wake-up call against Cork in a challenge match in Castletownroche and got another one shortly afterwards against a second-string Tipperary team in Lattin. After that, I thought - a lot of the lads thought - 'we need to seriously up the intensity at training here'. It never happened....
"After the All-Ireland semi-final (defeat to Tipperary), reporters in the local media were asking for answers, saying the Limerick public deserved that at least - I agree totally with that.
"The players aren't exempt from criticism, we took the field on the day, but this is all supposed to be part of the package, and management have to shoulder some of the blame too but that wasn't happening."
Reale is also unhappy with the way in which McCarthy went out about dropping players from next year's panel and revealed that he voiced his unhappiness at last Wednesday's meeting.
"After Justin had finished talking the floor was thrown open for questions, and I stood up," he explained. "'Justin,' I said: 'Why didn't the lads who were being cut get even a phonecall to explain what was happening? I think it was very unfair what happened to them, the way they were treated,' I told him."
"And he said to me - 'Damien, did you ever hear the phrase, you're not your brother's keeper?'
"Well, if I'm not, I thought, then I'm no good to any team, nor to any management. I've led these fellas' around the field, captained them, and I'm proud to have done that. They were my team-mates, and it was wrong to see them treated like this, it was wrong to see that old complaint about fellas' acting the maggot brought up again.
"I can categorically state, everyone did everything that was asked of them this year - I can even quote Justin himself, he told us over and over again that we were the best team to train he had ever come across. I know the effort those lads put in, every year.....
"The question I asked myself was could I give 100 percent to a management team that had treated people like this? After nine years with Limerick this is the hardest decision I've ever had to make.
"I'm still only 28 and I'm so proud to have worn that jersey, but I feel I have to stand up for what I felt was right. I'm not trying to dictate anything to anyone, Justin is entitled to pick any panel he likes, and new blood is good, but I do have a problem with the fact that there has been no inquest into what went wrong - there was no decency in it."