It may have been coincidence, but the fact that the weekend's draw for next season's championships came so close on the heels of the Football Development Committee's (FDC) proposals was wholly appropriate; nothing better demonstrates the bankruptcy of the current championship system than Sunday night's draw in Montrose.

In the RTE studio, the usual business with the balls and goldfish bowls takes place and, incrementally, the schedules for the following summer's provincial championships take shape.

At one stage one of the GAA's major sponsors was urging that more of a fiesta be made of the whole thing, but nothing has happened to change the dreary old format except that in the last two years it has had to be postponed while relevant authorities adjudicated on proposed championship formats in one or two of the provinces.

The timing of the draw is hopelessly out-of-kilter. Followers of the game have relapsed after the excitement of the previous All-Ireland final into the general torpor brought on by the numbing effects of the National Football League.

The following year's championship is too distant a prospect to excite much interest more than six months before a ball is played.

Yet more than all of these largely cosmetic points, the current format of the championship underlines the necessity for change. One of the less discussed elements of the FDC proposals was that they cater for novel championship pairings, matches between counties who have never met before at the highest level.

This threw into stark perspective the schedule of matches for the coming summer - with their jaded confrontations, a good number heading for their third and fourth year on the fixtures' schedule. To maximise variety and enhance public interest, there is a definite need to undertake an initiative such as that proposed last week.

One of the odder aspects of the time-honoured provincial draws is the extent to which they restricted competition around the country. For instance, Kerry have never played Donegal in a championship football match; in hurling, Tipperary have never played Offaly.

This state of affairs was underlined on Sunday with a rivetingly unoriginal selection of matches. The majority of Ulster championship matches are exactly as they were last year. Five of the six matches E were not alone played but were also drawn out of the hat.

Leinster also looks fairly familiar. Meath play Offaly for the fourth year running. Westmeath and Laois are set for a third successive encounter.

Despite the innovation of the hurling preliminary pool, the province still sees a semi-final line-up which brings Wexford and Offaly together for the seventh year in a row and specifically in the semi-finals for the third year running.

This isn't the fault of anyone in particular, because you can't apply random theory to a pool as small as a province and expect pairings not to repeat themselves.

It may be argued that the league format proposed by the FDC will guarantee plenty of identical fixtures on an annual basis if it gets the go-ahead. There is, however, a big difference between facing teams in a round-robin and having to focus on them as potentially your only big match of the year.

Furthermore, the variety introduced by the combining of provinces will ensure a level of unpredictability manifestly lacking in the current system.

It should also be mentioned that, whereas the FDC did a remarkable job in reconciling the provincial championships with the need for a league format to guarantee more matches, the product of their labours looks vulnerable in a couple of areas - mainly relating to the way teams will be treated differently depending from which province they come.

This isn't entirely the FDC's fault. It's the consequence of the provincial system which is completely unfair in itself. Such anomalies as arise from the new proposals are because of the perceived continuing need to accommodate the provinces.

This may be realpolitik, but we're still left with a hurling championship which requires Waterford to beat Tipperary and Clare in order to reach the same status as Kilkenny may achieve by beating either Dublin or Laois. The GAA have taken steps in the right direction, but there's a long way yet to go.