The GAA has defended the decision to stage last weekend's NFL semi-finals at Croke Park. The double bill of Galway-Mayo and Donegal-Kildare attracted just 23,209 paying customers, but the association's information officer, Feargal McGill, argued different points of view had to be weighed up and the attendance did not differ significantly from the norm for semi-finals.

"The first thing you have to say is that supporters have one set of wishes and teams and managements have another," he said. "You're going to upset one group. Players and managers are all anxious to play in Croke Park.

"The crowd wasn't huge in Croke Park, but you won't find a pair of league semi-finals that attracted a bigger crowd than that in recent times.

"Even going back, there was a piece in the match programme recalling the 1991 semi-final between Kildare and Donegal.Micko (O'Dwyer) had just started in Kildare and at that time Donegal hadn't even reached a national final. That match was played along with DublinRoscommon and there were just 30,000 at it."

There was some irony in the criticism of the match arrangements, as there had been controversy earlier in the year when it appeared likely pitch-maintenance work would close Croke Park from the end of March. The GAA made a point of deferring this work until next week in order to accommodate the NFL final and decided to stage the semi-finals there as well.

There has also been a fading of interest in the knockout stages of the league in recent years, a phenomenon specifically referred to by the GAA director general, Liam Mulvihill, at the launch of this year's competition three months ago.

"I just wish that we would have a sell-out for the final game of the league," he said. "It has been one of the features of the league that, whereas most competitions start with a whimper and end with a bang, the leagues have tended to start with a bang and end with a whimper. It would be my sincere wish that wouldn't happen this year.

"My own opinion is it's too close to the championship at the moment and people's focus is on the championship and the launches tend to take place in the weeks leading up to the league finals and people's thoughts turn to the championship. We need a little bit more time between the conclusion of one and the beginning of the other."

Last year's final, between Galway and Kerry - admittedly played in the evening to avoid a clash with the Leinster-Munster European Cup rugby semi-final - brought a crowd of only 7,000 to Limerick's Gaelic Grounds.

Last year's semi-finals were played at different venues, with Mayo in Castlebar and Kerry in Killarney, yet the total attendance was less than 10,000 greater than Sunday's, when three western counties had to make the trip to Dublin on a weekend of glorious weather.

According to McGill, potential changes in the way the NFL is decided may well do away with the play-off stages. Like Mulvihill he sees the championship as posing a major distraction at this time of the year, especially with the changes in format that came in six summers ago.

"I think you're going to see a growing clamour - with concern about club fixtures getting adequate space in the restrictions of the calendar and the move to four straight divisions - for the team that finishes at top of the table to win the league. Semi-finals and finals are knock-out competitions just weeks before the championship knock-out starts.

"There has been a huge change this decade. Up until the qualifiers were introduced a county like Donegal would have been looking at possibly just one major outing in the championship. Now they're guaranteed at least two and if they lose there's every chance of getting a run that will take them into late July at least."

Tyrone GAA is to investigate violent incidents that led to the abandonment of a match between two of the county's top teams at the weekend.

The Division One A league match between Ardboe and defending champions Dromore was stopped with 20 minutes left after fighting broke out.

Michael Hughes, the intercounty referee officiating at the game, called an end to the action after efforts to restore order failed.

Aodhán Harkin, secretary of the county's Competitions Control Committee, said an immediate investigation would be ordered, the disciplinary committee meeting late this week.