GAA have no plans to revise draw

The GAA are not making any plans to vary next year's football championship draw. In answer to criticism over the zoning of the draw that threatens to replicate two provincial finals in this month's All-Ireland semi-finals, Tony O'Keeffe, who chairs Croke Park's fixture authority (the CGAC), has defended the current structure of the championships.

"The predetermined draw guarantees the timetable," he said yesterday. "This comes in with round four of the qualifiers and keeps the quarter-finals on track.

"It's a consequence of giving 13 days' break to the beaten provincial finalists. All the planning is done on the basis of that and means that we have to take into account the contingency of drawn provincial finals."

That situation meant this year, for instance, that quarter-finals were played on the same weekend as qualifiers - thus ensuring that Saturday's winners couldn't be involved in the following day's quarter-finals. "One solution," according to O'Keeffe, "would be to play the quarter-finals on the same weekend. That way you could run an open draw."

That was the case in 2001, the first year of the quarter-finals, although two of the fixtures ended in draws. This year the 13-day gap has helped to bring about, for the first time, a situation where all four defeated provincial finalists have reached the last eight.

• There will be a field of 20 in the 2005 Cic Fada finals - football's version of the Poc Fada - at Bray Emmets on September 17th. The holder is Offaly goalkeeper Pádraig Kelly, but the previous five titles were won by Mark Herbert from Kildare, who set the record for the event with a kick of 72 metres.