SEÁN Óg Ó hAilpín has added his voice to the Clare hurling row and advised the feuding parties to find a quick solution to their differences or run the risk of embroiling themselves in the sort of "bitter and poisonous" situation that Cork found themselves in earlier this year.

Ó hAilpín, a veteran of three player strikes between 2001 and 2009, was singled out for a personal rebuke by former Rebel boss Gerald McCarthy, as he and his team-mates remained stoic in their wishes for McCarthy's removal earlier this year.

McCarthy chose to highlight Ó hAilpín's "substantial commercial interests" during the row, releasing a statement which accused the last Cork All-Ireland-winning captain of "flip flopping around the place and changing his mind about my abilities as a coach, to suit the agenda of the day."

But ó hAilpín has urged the warring Banner factions to come to a quick resolution or face a winter of discontent similar to Cork's last year.

"From an onlooker's side of things, I just hope they can come up with a solution quickly, because the longer it goes on, the longer it festers and gets more bitter and poisonous," said ó hAilpín.

"Hopefully it won't go as far as what happened in our situation and they can nip it in the bud and get back to hurling.

"The problem I had last winter was that there were people commenting who didn't understand what they were talking about," he said.

"And I don't want to be one of them now. You have to be involved in Clare to know. I was heavily involved in the Cork situation, naturally enough, but I don't know the nuts and bolts of the Clare situation."

Ó hAilpín admits that the fallout from Cork's own industrial action earlier this year was that "not everyone is behind us" and stressed that the Rebels "need to get out supporters back" but warned that a successful Leeside hurling team is no longer an inevitability and that a Munster final appearance next season would constitute good progress.

"There was a time in Cork people's minds when we were shoo-ins to win the All-Ireland every year," said Ó hAilpín. "That's gone now.

"We just have to get competitive again. We have to get back into the big ticket games again, All-Ireland semi-finals, finals, before we can even talk about stopping Kilkenny."

"Okay, if we get on a run and we meet Kilkenny in a semi-final then you think 'imagine being the team to stop Kilkenny doing the five-in-a-row'. But at this moment in time, there's no guarantee that will happen.

"We just have to get our house in order. We need to get competitive, we need to win a Munster championship.

"If Cork win the Munster final next year, that would be great progress," he added.

- Conor McKeon