GAA SPECIAL CONGRESS:DAYS BEFORE Saturday's GAA Special Congress takes place association president Nickey Brennan said yesterday failure to support the proposed disciplinary package down for debate would be to "condone persistent fouling" and claimed that teams are being coached in what he termed "cynical and persistent fouling".

The most contentious aspect of the package would see players dismissed for a yellow card although a substitute would be allowed replace them. There has already been opposition to the idea but Brennan said that for congress to reject the proposals would send out the wrong message.

"If we don't pass the motions, it means that as an association we are condoning the notion of persistent fouling. The passing of these motions will actually help in getting coaches to coach people in the art of challenging for a ball.

"In terms of on-the-field discipline, there is no doubt now that in relation to, probably more so football than hurling but I wouldn't exclude hurling either, that teams are being coached to work to the very edge of the disciplinary rules. I would say that there is a level of cynical and persistent fouling that is not helping in our game and at which the motions at congress at the weekend strive to help.

"On the wider issue of discipline I concede that (although) we had a couple of high-profile cases this year the overall level of discipline was actually quite good and we will produce the statistics on that in a while."

The high-profile cases referred to concerned the long-running saga of suspensions to Dublin's Colin Moran and Kerry captain Paul Galvin, both of whom successfully challenged their bans at the GAA's independent disputes tribunal, the DRA.

Conceding that these cases "certainly didn't do the overall image of our discipline any good", Brennan was critical of the manner in which they had been processed.

"It was the process more than anything else that highlighted them. They were dragged out for a period of time because of the route they took. We are still somewhat perplexed at some of the outcomes. I mean it's fair to say that the final report that we've seen in relation Collie Moran still completely perplexes us as to what the hell that is all about.

"We still don't understand it. We still haven't seen the output from the Paul Galvin DRA case. Until such a time that we get those and analyse them, I suppose we have to see if there are some aspects of our discipline procedures that need to be sorted out."

Moran's case succeeded on the grounds that the decision to suspend him for a month had breached the test governing whether any tribunal can revisit the facts of a suspension as opposed to whether it was procedurally correct.

This test is considered quite tough in legal terms, allowing a review if "the impugned decision plainly and unambiguously flies in the face of reason and common sense".

This has serious implications for the future, as it could lead to demands for the facts of whole cases to be reheard by the DRA on the same grounds.

Brennan reiterated the GAA's unhappiness at the length of time it took for the DRA to publish the Moran decision and at the fact that the full Galvin ruling has yet to be released despite having been decided more than two months ago.

"Yes, I think that would be very much one of our concerns and it's certainly something that once we sit down to review the process, it's one of the matters that would be of concern to us, I mean we shouldn't have to wait as long for a DRA ruling.

"It may very well be in reaching a decision the DRA come up with a particular point of GAA law that would be imperative for us to know so we wouldn't make that mistake again. It is a concern that it would take so long and we need to find out from the DRA people themselves why it took so long and how we can be sure such matters don't happen again and these cases can be extradited in terms of the end result."

He said that he was open to the idea of the authority passing into the hands of a smaller collective than the current panel of lawyers and administrators, who all give their time on a voluntary basis.

"That is certainly always an option. There are other options we are looking at that I don't want to talk about at this point in time."