On GAA: It wasn't one of the highlights of the Congress weekend, and didn't attract enormous attention coming as it did in the course of a low-key presidential address, but Seán Kelly's comments on the Gaelic Players Association were none the less interesting.
"I am not 100 per cent sure we know or that they know themselves what their focus is, but it's quite clear that while they may or may not represent all players, players do not want anyone else to represent them either."
It was the GPA's turn to have its own annual conference last weekend and a couple of possible focuses emerged.
Most immediate publicity centred on the threats of Cork's Dónal Cusack - secretary of the association - that members might have to consider strike action - that is refusing to play with their counties - if more attention was not paid to players' grievances.
Given that Cusack was very much the Jim Larkin of the Cork hurlers' revolt three years ago, the threat wasn't to be dismissed lightly, but according to chief executive Dessie Farrell undue emphasis was laid on the comments at a time when the organisation actually feels that matters are moving along satisfactorily in discussions with Croke Park.
Farrell's own comments were also noteworthy on two fronts.
Firstly, he distanced the association from the battle for recognition, something that has caused resentment within the GPA over the past couple of years.
Secondly, he announced that the long-running attempt to secure financial support for Gaelic players was quite advanced along its most promising path to date.
The idea that all intercounty panellists would receive annual grants of €2,000 is quite advanced and has a better chance of becoming a reality than previous initiatives such as the tax credit.
The proposal goes before Central Council for its approval and there's little reason to suppose that it won't get it - particularly given that public funds rather than Croke Park's are at stake.
Pitched as recognition of the cultural and heritage values of Gaelic games, the grants would hardly breach the flexible guidelines on amateurism any more than scholarships and endorsement money even if by strict definition it looks like pay for play.
Farrell correctly identified that the recognition issue was fast becoming an irrelevance. That the GAA sit down - however long it took - and discuss player issues with the GPA is de facto recognition and anyway, as Farrell pointed out, the most important validation for the association is that of the membership, which is claimed at around 1,400.
Representation is a different matter. For the past two years there has been no players' representative on Central Council. At the end of Seán McCague's term of office, the appointment of Jarlath Burns as chair of the official Players Committee also lapsed. In the interim no players have been willing to accept nomination to a successor body.
Although he had officially abandoned his quest for a new players' committee almost exactly 12 months ago, as recently as last November Seán Kelly was still looking. At the post-match dinner in Paris on the occasion of the Railway Cup final the president cast an almost despairing net for any stray players who might want to be involved in an "approved" body.
You don't have to take the GPA's membership figure at face value to understand that the organisation is the only game in town. The fact that no one wants to cut across its wishes is further evidence as is the fact that so far any dissidents on the public record have come from slightly maverick perspectives - that they personally haven't been benefiting from the GPA.
In other words there is no evidence that significant numbers players are uneasy with the GPA on the grounds that it threatens the traditional ecosystem of Gaelic games.
That's not to say that such views of the organisation don't exist within the GAA. Many officials bridle - some on and some off the record - at any mention of the GPA and its activities. But Kelly has been right to keep communications open and as cordial as possible.
At the same time Kelly's predecessor, McCague, was being strictly logical when he questioned the GPA's desire to be represented on Central Council.
"I'm at a loss that they want to keep their independence and yet they want to be on Central Council," he said in January 2003 in response to a decision of the GPA agm.
"You can't be outside the tent and inside the tent at the same time. But I wasn't at the meeting so I'm not aware of the thinking behind it."
The thinking behind it is Central Council provides the most effective platform for pressing players' issues. Opposition to the idea has been expressed along the lines that players are members of the GAA, but have no special privileges as regards representation - yet that's an argument already debunked by Burns's presence on the council up until 2003.
Anyway it's ostrich time to try to maintain that intercounty players and their activities are somehow on a par with all other members or even all other playing members.
As a great national organisation the GAA is sustained by voluntary effort, which is given by thousands in a recreational capacity.
The demands on intercounty players long since passed the point at which they could be considered in any way recreational, involving as they do the complete restructuring of their social lives and in some cases the putting on hold of their careers.
These escalating demands have been largely in the interests of the GAA's senior competitions, now expanded beyond historical recognition and providing the centrepiece of the association's promotional and marketing efforts.
It's not necessary to start a fight over amateurism to uphold the view that the players at the sharp end of these developments have a different role within the GAA to the ordinary membership.
Players are well aware of this and any notion that the GPA would somehow slip away as its predecessor organisations had done must have evaporated by now.
To paraphrase Kelly's comments to Congress: you may not like or understand the GPA but you'll have to live with them.
e-mail: smoran@irish-times.ie
