No sooner had the GAA made tentative rescheduling plans than the association faces renewed crisis over the future of its competitive calendar. News that a fresh outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease is suspected in Tyrone comes as a major setback to the association's hopes of returning to normality reasonably soon. It also places a serious question mark over the future of next month's annual congress scheduled for the weekend of April 7th.

"If there's a fresh outbreak anywhere, the situation changes," said GAA PRO Danny Lynch. "In our statement today (Monday) we specified that all arrangements were subject to further outbreaks in Ireland. If this case is confirmed, we will have immediate discussions with the Department of Agriculture but it potentially has serious implications for congress."

If the Department of Agriculture insists on a 30-day quarantine period before relaxing domestic restrictions, the annual congress won't meet that requirement. This would impact on a number of important matters, including the likely debate on Rule 42 - to allow the use of Croke Park for other sports - and the proposals to reform next year's hurling championship.

Hopes that most of the affected competitions could be completed may be dashed by the unfolding events in the North. "If that is confirmed," said Games Administration Committee chairman Padraig Duffy, "it'll change everything. It'll throw our timetable out the window."

Earlier in the day, Duffy had indicated that he was confident that with an April restart, the National Leagues could be completed before the championships started. "There are enough weeks there between April 1st and the championship. There's only two series of matches left in the Football League and four in the hurling. But if we doubled up at the weekends, the whole thing is doable.

"April has four Sundays and a Bank Holiday and I discussed a possible fixture plan with Sean O Laoire (GAC secretary) at the weekend. The GAC meeting scheduled for Wednesday (tomorrow) night was to draw up a timetable. If we got to start on April 1st, fine but if we go beyond that, we're in trouble."

In the case of a confirmation in the Tyrone case, the clock goes back to the start and it will be two weeks at least before the situation can be reviewed again. This would place increased pressure on the National Leagues although Duffy didn't want to speculate on what cuts might have to be made if the restart is delayed until the middle of next month at the earliest.

He did sound a cautionary note in answer to speculation that the league could be played simultaneously with the championship. "That's a possibility but you have to bear in mind that club fixtures have also been postponed and we have to give the clubs a chance when activity resumes.

The GAA's provisional plan to restart at the end of this month included confirmation that the club finals would not be played this weekend on St Patrick's Day. Initial hopes had been that the club finals - yet to be finalised given the outstanding hurling semi-final replay - would be played next month but that now is also in doubt.

Schools and colleges matches were due to resume this weekend and club activity a week later but again that is in doubt.

Fergal O'Donnell, the new Roscommon football captain, has been named as the Eircell Player of the Month for February. The presentation lunch, scheduled for yesterday, was postponed due to ongoing foot-and-mouth restrictions. Playing at centrefield, he was prominent in his county's National League victories over Dublin and Kerry last month.