Ross Carr, who announced his retirement from inter-county football at the end of last year's championship is back in the Down squad for their Ulster first-round match against Antrim next month.
Carr (34) opted out of the National League campaign but yesterday informed the selectors that he had changed his mind and will return to training this week.
On the hurling front, Dave Guiney and Rory McCarthy are standing by for selection on the Wexford team which will face Cork in the National League in Gorey on Sunday. Guiney missed the match against Kilkenny through injury while McCarthy was left out. The team will not be announced until later today.
Waterford hurlers have deferred selection of their team to play Tipperary at Thurles until after training tonight. With fitness doubts about goalkeeper Brendan Landers (Achilles tendon), half back Brian Greene (hamstring) and midfielder Peter Queally (groin) the selectors may experiment as this will be the team's last official game before the Munster championship clash with Limerick in Cork on May 30th.
It is expected that All Star Tony Browne will be named in the starting line-up having resumed training last week after missing the games against Cork and Laois.
On the football scene, Sligo will have five of their senior squad in their line-up for the Connacht under-21 final against Roscommon in Hyde Park on Saturday. The five are Noel McGuire at full back, Eamon Cawley at right half forward, Sean Davey at centre forward with Tony Brennan and John McPartland in the corner forward positions.
Also in the side comes the Sligo Rovers player Sean Flannery, who won a League Cup medal with Rovers last year.
The GAA will launch its new website today at a ceremony in the Burlington Hotel in Dublin. The launch will be performed by the association's president, Joe McDonagh, as he begins his final year.
The president elect will be named after the voting procedure takes place in the same hotel on Saturday afternoon. In contention are Noel Walsh of Clare, Albert Fallon of Longford and the favourite, Sean McCague of Monaghan. For the first time, this election will use the proportional representation system of voting.
Meanwhile, the Limerick division of the Garda Representative Association (GRA) has defended the action of Garda Tim Hickey for his intervention in a hurling match in Kilmallock at the weekend which resulted in the abandonment of the match. Garda Hickey was in uniform and on duty at the game when a free-for-all developed among the Kilmallock and Newcastle West minor hurlers. The garda and referee Willie O'Mahony made the decision to abandon the match.
The GRA spokesman also expressed concern about reported comments by the chairman of the Limerick County Board, Donal Fitzgibbon, in which he apparently said that the GAA did not welcome the fact that a precedent had been set and that the GAA "had its own disciplinary procedures which players could use and that no one had been seriously hurt".
The GRA statement said: "That nobody was seriously injured is not the issue here. A very serious assault took place and Garda Hickey took what steps he thought necessary to prevent a serious injury from taking place.
"The GAA chairman appears from his comments to be saying that unless the player assaulted takes his own action that no action should be taken. If this is what the (GAA) chairman infers then we (the GRA) disagree with his opinion."
Referring to the GRA statement, Fitzgibbon said last night: "The matter is now in the hands of the County Board disciplinary committee and the County Board itself. We have the referee's report of the match and that will be considered in the normal way and it would be wrong of me to make any comment before the normal procedures are followed and exhausted," he said.
