Connacht Council secretary John Prenty has called on the GAA to discontinue the Railway Cup just days after a qualified decision to retain the competition was taken. Last weekend's Central Council meeting decided to reject a proposal from the GAC to abolish the inter-provincial competition in order to ease fixture congestion.

In his address to tomorrow night's provincial convention, Prenty says that: "The time is now nigh for the association to bite the bullet and let the Railway Cup slip peacefully out of the calendar . . . the latest excuse is that the players want the competition but the evidence does not support this theory. In Connacht over the past number of years we have been unable to get all of the players we want for our team; for various reasons it has been impossible to train on a collective basis and we have been reduced to meeting on the day before our games."

Prenty also lamented the poor showing of the Ireland International Rules team last October and expressed the hope that "a better prepared team will travel to Australia for this year's series."

Also in the west, Mayo's former All Star centrefielder Pat Fallon has announced his retirement from inter-county football. "It was a tough decision but I just could not give it the time it required," said Fallon who is now manager of New Ireland in Galway. His decision follows that of another former All Star James Horan who has also indicated that he will not be part of Mayo's plans for the coming season but that he would continue playing club football.

"I would need at least six more weeks to sort things out and, by then, it would be too late to get back into things."

Mayo manager Pat Holmes said that whereas he regretted the decision, he accepted that neither player was able to give the necessary commitment.

Fallon was quick to deny speculation that he was now considering joining the Galway panel. "That is a nasty rumour that has been circulating and I can categorically deny it."

Fallon, 35, enjoyed a relatively late flourish to his career and played in two All-Ireland finals and won five Connacht medals. Having missed out on a first-team place during Mayo's progress to the 1996 All-Ireland, Fallon went on to become the best centrefielder in the country a year later.

Meanwhile it has emerged that Carlow football manager Pat Roe may not consider a number of players from the O'Hanrahan's club for the remainder of the season. The county champions just completed a great run in the club championships, falling narrowly to Munster champions Nemo Rangers in Sunday's All-Ireland club semi-final.

Apparently only Mark Carpenter and Alan Bowe attended an early-season meeting to confirm availability for the county team this season and the other players may now be excluded from future plans.

County Chairman, Eddie Byrne, has confirmed the actions of team manager Roe emphasising that all the players had to do was tell him they were available once their club championship run had ended.

"Pat Roe is only interested in players who are committed to the county jersey," he said. "He would not consider ringing any player, they were given a deadline and plenty of time to respond.

"Pat Roe would not have had a team for the national league only for the current panel of players made themselves available. We could have ended up in similar circumstances to the All-Ireland B championship when we had only 14 players to start against Wexford. He is leaving down a marker this year stressing that it will lead to improvement in the long term."

Kilkenny have named an unchanged team to play Cork in the NHL on Saturday at Pairc Ui Chaoimh. While the personnel is the same, manager Brian Cody has made two positional switches with Jimmy Coogan and JP Corcoran swapping positions from the victory over Waterford last weekend.