A major restructuring of the season is on the cards as the GAA takes stock of the weekend's disastrous weather. The Games Administration Committee (GAC) has indicated it will consider relocating the semi-finals of the All-Ireland club championships to before Christmas, and moving the Sigerson and Fitzgibbon Cups back to March and April.

In the past week a number of matches have gone ahead in conditions that rendered pitches unplayable. Most attention focused on Sunday's All-Ireland club football semi-final between Rathnew and Ballinderry, whose manager, Brian McIver, said afterwards that he felt the match should not have gone ahead.

But there was a similar situation at the Grange pitch in Sligo last Thursday when the UCD-Athlone IT match went ahead in atrocious conditions - largely because there was no time to reschedule the Sigerson Cup quarter-final given the constraints of weekend tournament play.

Last week, Seamus Elliott, coach of Dunloy, suggested such matches should be switched to the autumn now that both National Leagues are played on a calendar-year basis.

Paraic Duffy, the chairman of the GAC, is not opposed to the idea. "There would be no difficulty now in holding those semi-finals before Christmas. I would have a very open mind on it if that's what the clubs feel is the best way to go. I'm not saying we would necessarily do it this year, but we'd consider it for the future."

He was also at pains to point out that there was no pressure from above on referees to go ahead with matches regardless of the conditions.

"That does not happen. If matches have to be called off, we will deal with it - like we did last year when the whole of March was lost. There's no reason for referees to feel pressurised."

One man who has experience of both the club semi-finals and Sigerson is Des Cullinane, the UCC football coach and chairman of Comhairle Ard Oideachais (CAO), which oversees the third-level competitions. His side played Crossmaglen Rangers in the All-Ireland club series two years ago and he sees the sense in the proposal.

"It definitely makes sense. The schedules are choc-a-bloc at the moment at this time of the year, and what we're not taking into account is that it's the same players. A calendar-year league run of seven games looks great, but then you end up like Cork at the weekend, a county missing half their team. Nemo are getting ready for the club semi-final and UCC were in the Sigerson final."

There are difficulties with moving the club semi-finals. Few want to change the club finals from St Patrick's Day now that the national holiday has become a fixed date for the event, which draws what the Railway Cup did in its heyday. But that would leave a three-month gap between semi-finals and final.

The most successful club manager in recent times is Joe Kernan, who led Crossmaglen to three All-Irelands in four years. Now in charge of Armagh, he is unenthusiastic about the proposal to bring the club semi-finals forward.

"We always liked the semi-final two or three weeks before the final. It gave you a lift after a long break. We did have to play on a few bad pitches, but if semi-finals were played before Christmas, there'd be an awful long time with no competitive matches."

The GAC are likely to hear from the CAO about proposals to discontinue the traditional tournament weekend format in the Sigerson and Fitzgibbon Cups. UCD coach and Dublin selector Dave Billings says that the time has come to switch the matches to weekly programmes of Wednesday fixtures.

"Players are being mistreated, having to go out in those conditions and play on three successive days. Two years ago we had to play extra time in the quarter-final, semi-final and final. UCC had to play extra time on Thursday and Friday of last week. That's not fair. Matches should be played on a week-by-week basis."

Cullinane agrees. "In 20 years of involvement with the Sigerson I've never seen conditions as bad. I think Sligo did their best with the pitches, but there's no room for manoeuvre when the whole competition has to be finished, and it becomes a war of attrition. I'd support a proposal to move away from the weekend format."

Again, Duffy sees no difficulty with that.

"It would make life easier all around. Even if they could play the Sigerson on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday it would be a help. But I wouldn't be dictating. I think it's a terrific competition and they were very helpful to us when they agreed to move the final and the starting day last week."