GAELIC GAMES:Other GAA units are becoming indignant at the inability to use their properties as they see fit, writes SEAN MORAN

WELL THAT’S that, then. This weekend’s Magners League semi-final between Leinster and Munster was the last chance for a rugby fixture in Croke Park in what in all likelihood will be a long, long time.

The legacy of the five-year episode, staring with the 2005 congress decision to open up the stadium to rugby and soccer, is complex. That decision five years ago meant the last of the exclusionary rules or bans had fallen and few believed it would ever be reinstated.

Last month’s congress duly tidied up the situation, leaving Central Council, under Rule 5.1, the authority to rent out the ground again should there be any enquiries.

This was a fairly theoretical exercise.

Both the IRFU and FAI have committed to the new Aviva Stadium for the next 10 years and won’t be upsetting commercial contracts to take fixtures back across the river regardless of the substantial fall in capacity.

It has been made clear to Croke Park – where GAA officials weren’t expecting anything else – there will be no occasions on which this policy will be revised with even the European Rugby cup (ERC) emphasising they won’t be cutting across the host association by staging European Cup fixtures anywhere except where the IRFU want them.

So whereas it was important the GAA didn’t make a song and dance out of the whole thing and revive the controversies of the old Rule 42 (as 5.1 used to be numbered) wars, taking the action that they did had no practical impact.

There was, however, another aspect to the debates on the floor of congress over three weeks ago.

Whereas in 2005 it was considered important for the reformers to insist they had no designs on any GAA grounds apart from Croke Park – to reassure conservatives the contagion could be isolated – it’s been possible to detect a change of direction in the intervening years.

It had become an argument in the anti-reform catalogue that local grounds and facilities could not logically be excluded from the process of relaxing the rule. Even then director general Liam Mulvihill ventured – to barely suppressed consternation amongst those supporting change – that he couldn’t see how Croke Park could be separated from other venues.

Now the position appears to have become that, far from needing protection, other units are becoming indignant at the inability to use their properties as they see fit.

So having endured the fire and brimstone of the debate five years ago, the GAA had no difficulty this year in pushing through the permanent opening of Croke Park, as it was clear to most that the sky hadn’t fallen in on Jones’s Road and the income, ring fenced for infrastructural projects, was most valuable at a time when capital grants have disappeared so quickly as to leave a huge vapour trail.

Even Tyrone, among the old rule’s most steadfast defenders, seemed to take the glum view that since everything was now apparently all about money why not let everyone get in on the new pastime.

Central Council delegate Brendan Harkin even suggested (tongue-in-cheek, presumably, although sometimes it’s hard to tell) the GAA might promote one of those pre-season soccer tournaments at Croke Park.

The buzzing in the background on the matter at this year’s congress was the Nemo Rangers incident.

The well-known Cork club allowed the Ireland rugby team use its Trabeg sports centre when the cold weather in February made the original training venue at PBC unplayable.

In a move that took many by surprise the authorities got involved in the issue, summoning an explanation from Nemo as to how it breached Rule 5.1 which stipulates that a) property including grounds, clubhouses, halls, dressingrooms and handball alleys owned or controlled by units of the association shall be used only for the purpose of, or in connection with, the playing of games controlled by the association and b) which prohibits grounds (apart from Croke Park) controlled by the GAA from being used for field games other those sanctioned by Central Council.

There are three points to be made about this intervention.

Firstly, the rule is ambiguous and could easily be interpreted in Nemo’s favour on the basis that a bunch of rugby players contributing to the club’s coffers is as much in connection with the playing of Gaelic games as the subscriptions of any other paid-up users of the sports centre (in other words, does Croke Park have to be satisfied that recreational players of other sports don’t use Trabeg?) and the sanctioning of rugby by Central Council has arguably already taken place.

Secondly and conversely, whatever about the ambiguity of the rule, it has been made clear by the GAA and very forcefully by association president Christy Cooney at the recent congress that the relaxation of Rule 5.1 applies only to Croke Park. Part of the arguments in favour of the 2005 motion was that it would only apply to the headquarters venue.

Thirdly and conclusively it is very unlikely that anything will be done about this.

Aside from the public relations embarrassment and the revisiting of the frictions caused by the whole issue in previous years, given the above ambiguities an even more embarrassing possibility exists: the Disputes Resolution Authority could uphold the club’s right to lease its training facilities, as opposed to playing fields.

In the current economic wasteland the question of raising revenue has become even more pressing for units of the GAA and the facilities that have been so prudently built up over the years could help raise much needed funds.

The sight of Croke Park raising €36 million is a reminder of that.

It will, however, be up to the clubs to bring forward proposals on any further formal loosening of the rule.

The GAA at national level find it difficult enough to pilot through worthwhile initiatives that should be non-contentious without getting side-tracked by another campaign whose publicity value considerably outstrips its practical application.

But if clubs want to pursue the matter it’s in their own hands.