A busy weekend both on and off the field. Most obviously, the Polo Grounds result was avenged and the country can again look forward to the oddly reassuring prospect of Kerry in an All-Ireland final. No matter how good it is for new counties to break through onto the national stage, it's equally important for a sport that it should thrive in traditional strongholds and with Kerry lagging well behind their century's average of three All-Irelands a decade, it was time for the county to come again and here they are.

There was also a sentimental welcome for Cavan's return to the big time. As has been well publicised, the county is a major - if recently dormant - football presence, joint sixth in the All-Ireland roll of honour. Their absence from the limelight has been even more prolonged than Kerry's but their comeback is evidently not as advanced.

Aside from Sunday's well-attended semi-final, there was other activity in Croke Park at the weekend. Saturday's Central Council meeting dealt with an impressive share of business, relating to both National Leagues and the Football Development Committee.

Most pressing was the question of the NHL, if for no other reason than evidence of the crisis into which the competition had slid was on view that very evening in the Galway-Tipperary semi-final in Ennis.

It didn't require a genius to see that whereas the opening phase of the calendar-year NHL had been a splendid success with big crowds, high attendances and (although as far as we know, Frank Murphy and the Hurling Development Committee weren't directly responsible for this) exceptionally good weather, the continued well-being of the competition wasn't guaranteed.

Nonetheless, there were some hopes that the opportunity to play competitive inter-county matches during the optimum months for hurling would influence counties into welcoming the new arrangement. It hasn't turned out that way.

There are a couple of problems for the new format of the NHL. Although the regulation matches worked out well, it would have been better for the overall credibility of the arrangement if the most dominant team of the summer, Clare, hadn't so manifestly soft-pedalled their league campaign to the extent that they were relegated.

They were joined in Division Two by eventual Leinster champions Wexford. This obvious demotion of the NHL as a priority could be infectious although the HDC will devoutly hope not. Of course, this could take care of itself should Wexford and Clare experience difficulty bridging the gap between the second division and next year's championship.

Such was the experience for the promoted teams this year, with Cork giving the best account of the three but like Dublin and Waterford, losing their first serious championship match. All are emerging teams, however, and surviving the lower standard of Division Two might come more easily to settled, experienced sides.

Over the weekend, the extent of the problems for the new format's knockout stages became apparent. Tipperary, ironically the county which had done most to combine successful league and championship campaigns, decided the competition was entirely superfluous to their All-Ireland preparations and sent out a second-string team.

Kilkenny, a county that appeared to be taking the NHL seriously, instead reaped a particularly nasty whirlwind with the premature loss of their entire management team. Now Galway and Limerick must wait until 5th October before resolving the issue.

This encapsulates the difficulty inherent in the new league. After great momentum had built up during the regulation matches, the knockout stages didn't start for another six weeks. It was a lucky break that interest in those quarter-finals derived from the co-incidental presence of both the defeated Munster and Leinster finalists.

There followed a further six-week gap until last weekend's semi-finals and the same again until the final. This has repeated one of the main flaws of the old league system - a complete breakdown of continuity, falling between each knockout round rather than around Christmas as was the case previously.

It is as well to remember that the current format is only experimental and its provisions were worth a look even if the timing must plainly be reviewed. One thing is, however, sure: it will not be possible to conclude a traditionally structured NHL, (divisional fixtures followed by quarterfinals, semi-finals and final) which starts in March, with the start of the championship.

Whereas the HDC has work to do, the evidence of the season to date has been that it is heading in the right direction and even if a regrettable lack of ambition helped undermine the extended league season, there is now no option but to bring forward the concluding stages of the competition.

WHILE they attend to their deliberations, their counterparts in the Football Development Committee have been busy and the introduction of experimental rules in the secondary provincial competitions, O'Byrne, McGrath and McKenna cups and the FBD League, will be of interest.

Restrictions on the solo run and the direct pickup were tried in a junior club competition within the last year, won by St Brigid's of Dublin in the final against Breaffy from Mayo, and those who viewed the matches noticed by how much the game was speeded up and improved.

A shake-up in the NFL structure has also been decided and the introduction of groups of mixed ability will lend a certain novelty to proceedings when the new season starts. This was tried five years ago and worked very well on two fronts.

Firstly, it gave a great incentive to weaker counties to prepare for matches in which they were facing big-name opposition. Most strikingly, Kilkenny footballers who had a memorable meeting with Kerry (drastically unsuccessful but memeorable nonetheless) began the season by losing heavily, but by the end of it all, had noticeably improved their results.

One player privately expressed his dismay at the manner in which the idea was terminated after one season because he and his team-mates had never before felt so motivated in the league as when they were given the opportunity to rub shoulders with the game's aristocrats.

Neither was it merely a feel-good device for unsuccessful counties. Because of the structure, the best eight teams in the country qualified for the quarter-finals - something not guaranteed by the usual format, although Offaly's emergence from Division Four has thrown the whole hierarchical concept into a bit of a spin.

Incentive is present in the fact that final placings will determine in what division a team will start the following year's NFL. All in all, and despite the evident unhappiness of some stronger counties, it's a welcome innovation for the months ahead.