The Games Administration Committee are not considering moving the weekend's NHL fixtures to avoid a clash with the Ireland-England Six Nations rugby match. In 2003 the previous GAC switched the league programme to Saturday, the day before that year's match between the countries.

"We discussed it with TG4 when the television schedules were being organised," according to GAC chair Tony O'Keeffe, "but as to the fixtures themselves it was left up to the counties themselves. Two years ago the rugby match was the last day of the season and both sides were going for the Grand Slam. It's a bit different this year."

But O'Keeffe and TG4 head of Sport Rónán Ó Coisdealbha confirmed that the Limerick-Tipperary match, which will be broadcast live on Sunday, will have a 2pm start so that the overlap with the rugby is kept to a minimum.

"We met the GAC in January," according to Ó Coisdealbha, "and it was agreed whatever match we decided to cover would have an early throw-in. There'll be just a 15-minute overlap. We did the same in other years to avoid a clash, which is to RTÉ's advantage and more so to TG4's."

Already this year has seen a clash between a rugby international and TG4's National League coverage. At the beginning of the month the first weekend of the NFL was also the opening series of Six Nations matches. Italy-Ireland was on at the same time as the Donegal-Tyrone Division One A fixture and Ó Coisdealbha says the ratings suffered.

"That weekend we actually had a higher viewership for the deferred coverage of Offaly and Westmeath than for the live match. Again last weekend the deferred game got a big audience with 100,000 watching Waterford-Kilkenny."

The overall picture is very bright for the station's league coverage and the season opened with a major attraction when Cork played Kerry under lights on a Friday to open the NFL.

"That attracted 178,000," says Ó Coisdealbha, "which puts it into the top five or six of the past year. The club finals and league finals are the most successful, drawing about 200,000 and the women's All-Ireland football final last October (Dublin-Galway) had an audience of 207,000."

Prospects of Gerard Cavlan returning to the Tyrone squad have suffered a setback with the news that he broke an arm at the weekend. Cavlan picked up the injury while playing in a club game for Dungannon against Seán McDermotts at O'Neill Park. He had a plate inserted in the arm.

Cavlan informed manager Mickey Harte before the start of the current season that he was opting out of the squad as he felt he was unable to give the commitment required. But it was hoped he would reconsider in the not too distant future.