Seán Moran talks to GAA president Seán Kelly about a number of issues that he intends to address

GAA president Seán Kelly has expressed his concern about the lack of competitiveness in Leinster hurling in the wake of Kilkenny's record sixth successive provincial title success on Sunday. The All-Ireland champions' domination of Leinster was emphasised by the scale of the victory - an 11-point margin.

"Watching the game yesterday and knowing the effort Wexford put in, and looking at the underage performances here in Leinster over the 10 or 11 years, with Kilkenny dominating everything, there's obviously a huge task ahead to bring hurling up to the same high level in all the top counties and I certainly will do everything to tackle it," he said.

But he also sounded a sceptical note on the best way of addressing the problems. Echoing points he had made before taking up office last April, he questioned the value of coaching in the overall development context.

"There's been too much emphasis on appointing coaches. It's a small bit like ministers announcing that they have given so much money to health but people are asking what happened it at the end of the day.

"The exact same will happen to us if we're going to put emphasis on appointing coaches. They'll start off with under-10s, 12s, 14s and we'll be told what a fantastic job is being done. But where we're failing is bringing through players at under-18, 21 and senior."

At yesterday's draw for the hurling qualifiers third round, Kelly also referred to the appointment of a committee to look into ways in which the GAA can help address the problem of alcohol abuse.

"Seán McCague mentioned it at the end of his presidency and I felt it was very important that we should have a committee to look at the whole aspect of drink abuse in the country and the part we can play in (dealing with) it."

He was quick to expand the area of concern beyond that of Guinness's sponsorship of the hurling championship - an association that has attracted some flak in recent months, including from the Minister for Health.

"It's much broader than sponsorship, but because of our network and our membership, and in particular our influence on young people, we may be able to do more to alleviate this situation than just talking about it."

He wasn't yet in a position to name the committee but said that an announcement could be expected soon.

"The people we have in mind for that committee would have a lot of influence and a lot of good ideas, and I think we will be seen to do something positive to bring good sense to an alarming situation. I'm waiting for one or two to come back after holidays but I'll have it finalised by the end of the week."

It was also announced that the PR and Presentation committee, appointed by Kelly to consider ways of improving the presentation of big matches, have reported back with an initial recommendation to be implemented at the Leinster football final later this month.

"It's intended to utilise the big screen and introduce players through the big screen and so forth and create a bit more razzmatazz in the whole presentation area," said Kelly.

"It was something I was concerned about because I feel we've been doing the same thing essentially for the last 50 or 60 years. It's time to move on and look at different ways of doing things and look at what's happening worldwide. Especially in regard to the Special Olympics, which showed that you could create a good carnival atmosphere prior to the match. It's all part of the day out."

He was also questioned about the now widespread practice of naming teams for intercounty matches which bear little resemblance to how the side lines out. At the weekend there was much comment on the fact 17 Galway footballers lined up to meet President McAleese before the Connacht final.

"The 15 starting should be the 15 starting," said Kelly. "They should be the ones introduced to the President or the whole panel. When the season is over I'll have a chat with the managers to try to arrive at solutions for the overall good of the game. The tendency for someone (is) to try and get one step ahead of everyone else and often the overall good is forgotten and that's not for the good of the association."

He had reservations about the idea of teams selecting on the day from a panel of players listed in the match programme.

"That's another way of looking at it. It happens in other sports and if people are familiar with their players and there's a set panel from one to 30 it may be worth doing. I'm not sure the GAA would go down that road as of now.

"There's a good tradition of having 1 to 15 and they being known in advance. Psychologically there's a big difference between wearing 15 and 16 where prestige is concerned. A lot of GAA people wouldn't be happy to go down that road, but that's just my opinion and it may change."