THE SUBJECT of bad behaviour ill sport has become a major talking point in recent times and attracted headline's again this week with the decision of the Games Administration Committee of the Tyrone County Board to hand out some severe punishment to the Carrickmore club's senior sides and suspending as many as 11 of their players.

People who were actually at the abandoned match between Carrickmore and Errigal Ciarain say that had it happened in the street it would have constituted a major riot.

Then earlier this week there was a free for all in a Leinster, colleges match when as many as 20 players were involved in a rumpus in Mountmellick which did nothing to enhance the name of Gaelic football. And, of course, the Meath v Mayo fracas made its own impact.

There are as many theories about the reasons for this kind of thing as there are suspensions. Some say that these things are part of a general malaise in society, others talk of a lack of family discipline (the "I blame the parents" syndrome), others still seem to think television is to blame or that the stakes are too high and so on and so on.

Sometimes I wonder why it is that people have very short memories. In a general discussion here in the office last week someone mentioned that three players were sent off in the Galway v Kerry All Ireland final in 1965 - the referee, if memory serves me right being Dr Mick Loftus.

More recently four were sent off in the Dublin v Galway final of 1983. The "tunnel incident" on that occasion is still talked about and disputed. Personally I remember two very prominent Kerry and Dublin officials being involved in a "dust up" in Austin Stack Park in Tralee back in the 70s.

Back farther in my own youth I remember a huge "difference of opinion" between players and supporters of Keash and Coolera in Corran Park in Ballymote in the 50s. On that occasion, as a player at the other end of the pitch, I was forced to flee for my life when an "ould fella" with bicycle clips and brandishing an umbrella ran out from behind the goal and threatened to knock my head off. Sadly there was no television in those days. It would have made marvellous "footage".

The theory that television puts too much emphasis on such incidents has some validity. The Meath v Mayo rumpus lasted less than two minutes, nobody was hurt, nobody was treated for injury and the rest of the match went off without serious incident. Yet it was shown again and again on television: it was shown in slow motion, analysed and dissected and replayed until anyone would have thought that nothing else happened in the match.

That is not to say, of course, that what happened should be overlooked but it can be argued that far too much emphasis was put on some moments of madness which everybody regretted.

Leaving aside the ineptitude of the GAA in dealing with the matter - a delay which allowed the whole thing to become something of a soap opera the problem of bad behaviour of players and team mentors needs "to be looked at.

There are some who would advocate the "win at all costs" policy. The result of that is that there can be a temptation to meet fire with fire and this then ever increasing pressure be well nigh impossible.

It was interesting to note that in a recent interview in The Title, Liam Mulvihill supported the idea of two referees in the big matches. This column has advocated that approach on several occasions.

It is widely accepted that the rules are inadequate for dealing with the problems which arise. Genuine efforts have been made to address the problem of their being no really legitimate way of dispossessing the player in possession.

This leads to a tendency by the player with the ball to hold on as long as he can and frustration for the challenger. Referees do not like stopping the game for every little minor infringement and the result is a lot of what has become known as "pulling and dragging".

It has always been the view of this observer that the player in possession should not be challenged by more than one player.

That may suggest that I am advocating some kind of an Australian style "mark" where a clean catch immediately qualifies the catcher for a free kick. That might be going a little too far but a limit on the number of challengers allowed might fit the bill.

What has to be acknowledged now is that incidents such as that in the Meath v Mayo match are generated by frustration with the rules. Of course there are "hard men" in the game too who are prepared to test the referees mettle or to take advantage of his weaknesses.

Everybody seems to agree that something must be done. The mice in the fable also knew what the problem was but they could not agree on which of them would put the bell around the cat's neck.

Someone in the GAA has to take the initiative.