GAA PRESIDENT Nickey Brennan has hit back at suggestions that the association has neglected the interprovincial competitions. The criticism arose in recent weeks partly as a result of the scheduling that saw the Railway Cup, now the M Donnelly interprovincial competition, being played at the same time as the International Rules series.

The president had said last month he believed the interprovincials were "past their sell-by date". But yesterday at a press briefing in Melbourne he defended the association's role in supporting the competitions, which date back 80 years.

"We have been supportive of the interprovincials for quite some time and it is not our decision if anything happens to the interprovincials. I want to say that at the outset. The impression has been given that the association does not care about it and nothing could be further from the truth. Over the last five years, the association - and when I say association I mean Croke Park and the four provincial councils - have spent in excess of €1 million in the running of the interprovincials and that covers the logistics and promotion.

"In that five years we have gone to Rome, Paris and Boston with the competition and with the exception of the Boston trip, where there was reasonable support, there was no one at the other two locations. They were enjoyable trips nevertheless."

Brennan placed the support for the competitions in context by pointing out that the GAA had committed "significantly" more funds than even the long-term sponsor.

"I would acknowledge that Martin Donnelly has made a contribution but there has been a significantly greater figure put in by the association. But I would not want anyone to think that we are dismissing the support of Martin Donnelly, who continues to be a great supporter of the GAA.

"Last year we looked at a new dimension by staging them under the floodlights at Croke Park in the hope that would bring an about-turn in terms of interest. There was in the region of 10,000 people in Croke Park last year and the GAA spent in the region of €100,000 promoting the event last year and that marketing campaign reached three million people.

"We gave out a significant number of free tickets but just 18 per cent of those were taken up. There were many thousands of free tickets given out and among those were tickets to non-Irish nationals and from that section somewhere in the region of 1,000 turned up.

"On that basis we have worked extremely hard to try and do everything we can. There is definitely a level of interest among the players but I don't believe that every player is bursting with enthusiasm for it.

"For a couple of reasons, it is not that they don't want to play but it is coming at the end of an intercounty season, it is coming at the end of a club season and they generally feel that they want a bit of a rest."

Brennan referred to a proposal from Ulster football manager Joe Kernan that the interprovincial football final be staged on St Patrick's Day at Croke Park in tandem with the All-Ireland club football final with the hurling equivalents taking place the same day in Thurles.

Acknowledging that at least Kernan had been constructive in his suggestion, the president added: "There are two things on that. There would be a concern among the club hurlers that they would be deprived of playing in Croke Park but it would also mean that we would need another weekend to play the semi-finals.

"We are very tight on weekends when we get to that time of the year. We have been working very hard to fill in spare slots for clubs and we think that we have come up with a fairly good proposal now which will come into its own in 2009.

"If we were to take out a national league weekend to play interprovincial - I know the CCCC have grappled with this to try and find a slot so it is a challenging one and it is one that will have to go back to provinces and Árd Comhairle to consider the matter, but I want to be absolutely up front and certainly I would be disappointed by the comments of some people who feel that we have not been putting in the effort in. Nothing could be farther from the truth."