It’s not all a matter of results either. In one county recently in the news, a number of their players were on a club side that had just won a county title, yet at the end of that ‘successful’ year, the players quietly but surely informed its executive that the manager hadn’t improved them as a team and as individuals and wouldn’t sufficiently alter his ways to do so the following year. And so, the manager (was) moved on, his pride probably hurt somewhat, but not his reputation, and soon he was coaching another leading club while the one he departed continued to prosper and improve.

Such dignified discretion has also enfolded at inter-county level.

In 2003, representatives of the Clare hurlers let it be known through certain channels that while they were grateful to Cyril Lyons for his work over the previous three seasons, they felt it was best if a new man took them on.

Lyons, to his eternal credit, recognised his situation and as much out of respect for himself as the players, stepped down, without any hint of rancour. “A change of routine and ideas will be good for the players,” he’d say upon his decision.

Not only did such graciousness pave the way back for him to later take over the U21 management that won the 2009 All-Ireland and established the platform for Clare’s dominance in that grade, but in the shorter term he resisted heaping baggage and pressure on his senior successor Anthony Daly and the players he’d work with.

Clearly that is the way the players of Mayo and Galway would have preferred things. They did not run to the papers or to the board or wish to humiliate their managers, only for them to step down. Unlike in the case of Lyons and Clare though, they were met by resistance.

Maybe Anthony Cunningham’s intransigence was informed by another low-key departure that possibly backfired on Galway GAA. In the autumn of 2009, Liam Sammon duly acceded to the request of the county footballers to step down with such discretion, the idea seemed totally his. Six years on, not only have Galway failed to win another Connacht title but they haven’t even threatened to win one.

That’s the other thing about player heaves: while players are entitled to have a say, they’re not always adequately qualified or justified to have THE say. While in 2008 you could soundly argue that regular provincial champions like the Waterford and Cork hurlers had earned the right to conclude that they’d be best served with new managers, in hindsight, the Wexford hurlers of that vintage must wonder and conclude who the hell were they to oust John Meyler that autumn? The one player among their ranks who had earned the right, Damien Fitzhenry, would reveal upon his retirement in February 2010 that the treatment of Meyler was “absolutely scandalous”.

You look at Anthony Cunningham’s managerial resume this past decade alone. It was under him that St Brigid’s of Roscommon established a dominance of the Connacht club football championship. In 2012, he’d guide unfashionable Garrycastle to an All-Ireland club final appearance (do not be surprised when Cunningham pops back up on the managerial scene that it is in the big ball with a mid-tier county or a leading club). That’s not mentioning the U21 and intermediate hurling All-Irelands he’s won with Galway, the latter coming this year, on top of those senior September appearances in 2012 and 2015. Can any Galway player boast a more impressive playing CV?

But that’s just us looking in from the outside. The players are the ones on the inside, and their concerns could well be valid: that after four years, they felt the cause needed a new voice, a new impetus. They wanted even better coaching.

That’s one of the other ironies of some of these players’ disputes: while some old-school, out-of-touch commentators will speculate and pontificate that these players are uncoachable, often the players’ frustration and rebellion stems from a huge eagerness to be coached. I worked with those Mayo footballers for three years and can personally vouch that they all go to extraordinary lengths to improve their own individual game. The mirror is the first place they each will have looked towards. But this year after completing that self-assessment, they obviously looked around and calculated that management didn’t have the growth mindset to similarly upskill themselves or anyone.

A player’s life and season cannot be fast-forwarded to July, August, September when you will judge them; before and during those months, there’s a lot of commuting, training, time together away from loved ones. At times up to a third of the Mayo panel are based in Dublin. Nothing erodes the soul quite like seeing standards drop and bad practice being tolerated and carried out by management and county board alike. To make the journey worthwhile, ‘It’ll Do’ won’t do, especially when players will be judged themselves by the harshest and highest standards.

Players generally will give management the benefit of the doubt, but if they’re suitably process-driven and find management is not, there’ll come a time they’ll declare like Pacino in Heat: “Empathy was yesterday. Today you’re wasting y motherf***ing time!” Or as Pacino film observed, it’s nothing personal, just business, though inevitably and sadly, it will feel like it is.