GAELIC GAMES: The GAA hopes to have the report of its Strategic Review Committee by the end of the month, according to president Seán McCague.

"The committee are meeting this weekend and I would hope that a final draft will be available for consideration quite soon."

Once Central Council has had an opportunity to discuss the report, it will be released. The plan is to have the report in circulation by the time the All Stars trip to Argentina departs (January 25th).

The Strategic Review Committee, chaired by former president Peter Quinn, has been in session for over 18 months with the remit of planning a way forward for the GAA in the coming decades.

Its proposals will have wide implications for the administration of the association and the playing of its games.

McCague was speaking at a function in the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, at which he was presented with a framed copy of the originally published rules of hurling. The presentation took place on the 118th anniversary of the formal adoption of the rules by the Dublin Hurling Club.

Whereas a number of versions of the playing rules were in circulation at the end of the 19th century, those commemorated yesterday were particularly significant.

According to The Playing Rules of Football and Hurling compiled by Joe Lennon (1999), the Killimor rules in Galway were not published until 1885 although thought to have been in use since 1869. Rules of Hurley were also in circulation but that game is regarded as a version of hockey rather than a precursor of the modern game of hurling.

Dublin City Hurling Club was founded in 1882 by Michael Cusack two years before he established the GAA.

On January 3rd, 1883, the club held a meeting in a lecture room at 35 York Street, Dublin, under the chair of Dr Hugh Auchinleck, president of the club and a lecturer at RCSI. The club didn't survive the year as antagonisms between hurley players and hurlers, both of whom made up the membership, grew.

Speaking at the presentation, McCague said: "It is most fitting that we should gather to honour the memory of those who ensured the survival of the ancient game at a difficult time in its illustrious history and acknowledge the close links between the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and our national sport."

Professor George Parks, president of the RCSI, referred to the importance of sport in the college. "In fact, the college has recently developed a new faculty of Sports and Exercise Medicine in conjunction with the Royal College of Physicians. The new faculty will be fully operational later in the year."

Dublin All-Ireland winner Dr Pat O'Neill, a noted specialist in the area, is one of those involved in the establishment of the faculty.

"It will be the first in Europe," he said yesterday. "The granting of speciality status is with the Irish Medical Council and the recruitment of faculty is already under way.