The autumn has now emerged as a target date for Croke Park to stage big events in other sports - should next weekend's annual Congress agree. With the Six Nations committee postponing the remainder of the international rugby championship until next season, the Ireland-England match is now scheduled to take place at the start of next season.
Although the All-Ireland finals take place in September, this year's replays have been scheduled a week, rather than a fortnight, after any draws to facilitate the International Rules tour to Australia. This means that October will be free with no big matches due for another five months until the club finals on St Patrick's Day.
September 1st is the date for Ireland's vital soccer World Cup qualifier against Holland but can be regarded as less likely to mark the inauguration of any change in the GAA's policy towards the use of Croke Park. Sources within the association won't speak on the record about the matter in advance of Saturday's debate but opinion is divided on the viability of a soccer match being played the weekend before this year's All-Ireland hurling final.
According to one argument from a senior official there would be no practical problem playing a World Cup match eight days before the hurling season's climax, as soccer doesn't cut up pitches in the same way that rugby does. Kerry and Armagh played out extra time in their All-Ireland football semi-final replay on the corresponding Saturday last year (coincidentally the same day that Ireland drew the away fixture with Holland).
A less sanguine view is that the fixture would prove a hard sell to the GAA at large. "For a start we always try and keep that date free every year and no matches, apart from replays, are scheduled for the first Sunday in September," according to a different senior GAA source. "Secondly even if Rule 42 is changed at the weekend I don't think it's viable to start the whole thing rolling with a soccer match just a week before the hurling final."
A whole host of other difficulties crowd the horizon. Fundamental is the growing pessimism about the prospects of the motion to make Croke Park available to other sports. Although there are compelling financial arguments, indications are that these haven't yet created a consensus for change ahead of the vote which will require a two-thirds majority if the motion is to be successful.
Throughout the debate, there have been suggestions that rugby would be more acceptable to the rank-and-file than soccer as its administration spans the border. Last year when former president Peter Quinn first floated the idea that the Croke Park redevelopment could be funded by commercially exploiting the venue rather than by raising the resources internally, he referred to sports organised on a 32-county basis.
