LockerRoom: It was strange to be back in Parnell Park yesterday watching the hurlers of UCD in action again. A few weeks ago UCD won their third Dublin county championship of the decade when they beat St Vincent's in the final. At this point we must declare our hand and mention that this column is a member of St Vincent's. We're not here to tread any sour grapes though.

Yesterday UCD breezed past another great club, Birr, to reach the semi-finals of the Leinster championship. This column hopes the College goes all the way from here and wins an All- Ireland in March. Then perhaps there can be a proper debate about UCD's role in the Dublin championship and the world beyond. So long as UCD are merely whupping Dublin club hurlers nobody will care too much.

There are two needs to be balanced in this argument. Those of UCD and those of Dublin hurling. Those needs aren't mutually exclusive.

First. UCD hurling is a good thing. Any kneejerk dismissal of the game as practised in distant Belfield is counterproductive and informed usually by a raft of other prejudices. That the game should have a platform and a presence in the biggest college in the country is reassuring and necessary. The scholarship system is a fine idea, a benefit for many GAA players. We hear too little about the good things which fall in the paths of top hurlers and footballers.

UCD's introduction to the Dublin county championship was a good idea when it occurred to somebody long, long ago. The scholarship system has tilted the pitch a little too far however.

UCD are now the equal of any club side in the country and they have the resources to remain that way. The college is no longer dependent on a cohort of decent players all showing up on registration day in the same year. Nope. They should have won last year's Leinster hurling title. My bet is they will win this year's. In their wake they will leave a lot of traditional clubs scratching their heads and wondering.

The argument for UCD's sustained presence in the Dublin championship is they provide some sort of electroconvulsive therapy for what was a somnambulant competition. In reality the scholarship system has made them (if we may dumb-up for a moment) like lawrencium, an artificially-made element, bombarded in this case, not with boron ions, but with money and talent. They are our galacticos, our Chelsea.

What is important in this argument? It's true the side which represented Dublin yesterday in Parnell Park are not a Dublin club team. The players on Dublin club teams don't have other clubs down the country with whom they get a good crack at championship hurling with every summer before settling for the easy pickings of a Dublin medal. That's not a big deal however.

What is important is the steady sense of demoralisation in the Dublin club scene. A few years back Dublin won the Walsh Cup, a secondary Leinster intercounty hurling competition. For those who have been following Dublin hurling for a long time it was a moment of great hope. Last year UCD won the Walsh Cup as they warmed up for the inter-collegiate season. Imagine what all the Dublin club sides slogging away on frosty nights felt when the greatest recent achievement of the best of Dublin hurling was casually matched by a colleges side warming up for the Fitzgibbon Cup.

People don't like to complain but nobody really understands how bad beatings by UCD are helping anyone in Dublin hurling. All the work a club can do at mini-league and juvenile level will never match the effect of picking the best minors in the country in any given year and offering them third-level scholarships. There's the fundamental unfairness.

The Dublin county final was a poorly-attended and somewhat degraded affair, played under lights on a Friday night instead of being given the respect of a Sunday afternoon slot which a county final deserves.

Anyway, Brendan Murphy of Offaly won his third Dublin senior medal that evening. In truth Brendan is a joy to watch, but by the sound of it we're going to be watching him for a long time. Having completed one degree, he's now studying medicine. He's eligible to play for UCD for a full season after he finally completes his medical studies.

Brendan will end up with a hatful of Dublin medals. Will that inspire any five-year-olds in Dublin? Will he be out on Saturday morning coaching mini-leaguers? Brendan was widely interviewed in yesterday's Sunday papers. He said a very fair thing in his Sunday Times interview.

"It's very tough at times (against Dublin clubs) and you can't really blame them. If the shoe was on the other foot I don't know if I'd like a group of Tipp, Cork and Kilkenny lads playing in the Offaly championship, but we don't make the rules.

"If people don't want us in the competition, sort it out. But we're here, so live with it. There's nothing we can do as players. We're just playing the game. It's not our fault."

And that's the nub of it. Hating UCD or abusing UCD won't change anything. Their continued, unfettered presence in the Dublin championship is a testimony to the inability of Dublin hurling people to get themselves organised. Sort it out, says Brendan Murphy. He's right. Despite widespread grumbles of dissent, there are, yet again, no motions concerning UCD going before the Dublin county convention this month.

Brendan Murphy spoke a little disingenously yesterday about Birr having 13 players who, to the best of his knowledge, had played senior intercounty hurling for Offaly. It must have been a pleasant surprise then to see Redmond Barry of Wexford being introduced as a second-half sub yesterday.

Indeed 48 players represented the college throughout this year's Dublin county championship - an eerily-prolonged affair, the league stages of which are akin to burning down a barn in order to get a couple of mice out. UCD can perform a holding operation during the league stages and the county board's annual difficulties in getting senior hurling fixtures played will look after the rest.

St Vincent's, for instance, went 85 days this summer between county championship matches. That's prime hurling time during which one of the best hurling sides in the county were left biting their nails. Players' holidays were booked, cancelled, booked, cancelled again, deposits were lost, focus evaporated. While everything was on hold, Brendan Murphy, we read yesterday, was in Hawaii, then he was up and down the west coast of America, then in Vegas. Good luck to him, but no real club side could afford to be without their Brendan Murphy for that time.

Bryan Barry was hurling away with Kilkenny, Redmond Barry was with Wexford, Stephen Lucey was with Limerick and so on.

UCD have an astonishing panel right now. They will continue to do so. There are three options. Let them dominate Dublin club hurling until the county competitions become meaningless. Or just throw them out - which seems to me to be a waste of an opportunity. The third way is to modify things a little and make the system work for Dublin hurling.

How about limiting the number of Dublin county championships a non-native student can play in to just two. How about requiring UCD be involved in the county league as well as the championship. Dublin hurlers don't get the same opportunity as college hurlers to be basically full-time athletes for a few years. If a lad from, say, Ballyboden goes to UCD he'll continue to play for 'Boden. So in exchange for college sides benefitting from participating in county championships, why not a rule that a Fitzgibbon side from a Dublin college must have at least a dozen native Dublin players on a panel of 30? That way Dublin gets to share some of the benefits.

UCD are a problem for Dublin hurling but their existence and their excellence shouldn't be used as an excuse for the rest of the county to fall down and die. There's a gap that needs to be closed and it would be nice to close it.