IT IS surely a funny old game and never funnier than in the ranks of the GAA. This" week has been the run up for five important matches: the four National League quarter finals and a crucial relegation match.

With a big attendance expected in Croke Park (a double header) and other matches at Navan, Portlaoise and Clones, the Central Council of the GAA can expect a hefty boost to the bank balance, already in a healthy state.

Now, most people might expect that the GAA would rub its hands in glee and set about a major promotional job in a bid to maximise the income from these matches. No such luck.

The GAA, centrally, has no, or very little, control on matters of this kind, and efforts by print and broadcasting reporters this week came up against a conspiracy of silence from some of the counties involved as they tried to keep the lid on any news filtering out to the people, who will be asked to pay at the date.

Some years ago the GAA, in its wisdom (it has occasional moments of inspiration), instructed county boards to appoint public relations officers (PROs) to help spread the gospel. It was a fine aspiration, but in practice almost a total failure.

Some years ago I was invited to address a meeting of GAA PROs in Dublin, with a view to selling up a system which would benefit both the journalists and the PROs - in other words, everybody. Not one of the PROs who attended was able to give a telephone number for any of the GAA correspondents in the daily, evening or Sunday papers.

Before they left the meeting I provided all with a list of telephone numbers and names. It was the last I heard about it from anyone.

During this week contact was made from this desk with several PROs from the counties involved in tomorrow's matches Several complained that they were not getting any information from their team selectors. Several also admitted to being totally frustrated in their attempts to get information to the paying customers. Some admitted to knowing what the team would be but were under strict instructions not to reveal it.

Journalists on local newspapers were even more frustrated with mid week deadlines, they were unable to give adequate coverage even to those matches in which their counties were involved.

A few days ago the manager of the Donegal football team, P J McGowan, told a journalist from the Donegal Democrat which devotes considerable coverage to GAA affairs, that he would not be talking to any journalists before the Ulster championship match against Antrim next month.

All sporting bodies - and none more than the GAA depend on the oxygen of publicity to draw attention to their affairs which, in turn, brings people in at the gate with money in their fists.

Many sporting bodies hire publicity experts to promote their wares. The GAA has a public relations office whose members, led by Danny Lynch, are the salt of the earth. Their problem, however, is that they cannot break down the barriers which seem to convince some counties - not all - that information should not be given to reporters. On one occasion reporters who turned up at a training session before an All Ireland final were described arrogantly by a prominent paid official as "scavengers".

Some counties, not always the most successful, are cooperative and welcoming, but others seem to enjoy being the opposite.

The GAA will have its biggest pay day of the year so far tomorrow. The media, known to many in the GAA as "the cursed media who blow everything out of proportion", will have contributed hugely to the flow of money through the turn stiles.

Never mind. Life will go on and the GAA will continue its merry way, secure in the knowledge that "the accursed media" can't afford to ignore it. They are right of course. When P D Mehigan first gave a commentary on a hurling match ink Croke Park in 1931, he was accused of being a party to the undermining of the GAA with his "accursed contraption", namely a microphone. He was told that if people could "see" the match on the wireless they would never bother going in person.

Complacency is the enemy of reality. The GAA has no need to pander to the needs of the "accursed media", but it does have a responsibility to the people who pay money at the gate it has a responsibility to give those paying customers information about their sport and to co operate with journalists who act as a conduit for that information.

The GAA should take a few well known county team managers into a locked room and give them a good ear bashing.