THE DECISION of the GAA to set up a committee to deal with creeping professionalism in hurling and football comes far too late to be really effective. The stable door has been open for some time and the horse has bolted but there are hopes that it can be recaptured and reigned in.

For the moment the GAA authorities are now playing "catch up" and these same authorities are on the back foot. Mixing metaphors can become a habit.

What the GAA authorities failed to do years ago was to enforce their own rules in any realistic or authentic way and prominent players all over the country, supported by powerful figures within county boards, were constantly involved in private little deals. The exodus of players for lengthy weekends in New York and Chicago became a joke at which nobody really laughed.

The moguls at Croke Park shook their hoary beards and tut tutted while the whole amateur ethic was being undermined and then decided to get in on the act, eventually accepting all sorts of deals from the commercial sector.

What nobody realised at the time was that grave dangers lurked within the confines of the boardrooms where they were entertained and lured and when the inevitable happened they threw their hands in the air and put an innocent look on their faces and started to mend already badly broken fences. More metaphors.

Those of us who were at Lansdowne Road on Tuesday night to witness the most gutless performance ever by an Irish international rugby team came away with heavy hearts. Many of us were muttering "I told your so," as we pondered on the situation brought about in recent times which dictated that only two of the players who started the match were playing their rugby on this island.

What, you might well ask, has that to do with amateurism within the GAA? Simply this. When money came openly into the rugby union game loyalty and, I fear, heart went into the bank vault. For a considerable time previously Irish rugby courted "experts" from the Southern Hemisphere in the belief that we needed a new approach to the game to match the teams from South Africa, New Zealand and Australia.

Maybe we did. But it hasn't done us a lot of good, has it? On Tuesday night we were humiliated by a team from the Southern Hemisphere which few had heard of 10 years ago.

What seemed to me in that match was that we had abandoned all the great things which have been typically Irish like spirit and heart and determination. That brings us back to the GAA and amateurism for, if money comes flooding into the game as it has done in rugby, all the great spirit and passion which has been the epitome of Gaelic games down the years will be dissipated and, eventually, lost for ever.

Now, nobody in modern times, objects to prominent players, or any players at all for that matter, getting a few bob for making appearance at functions and so on or modelling clothes. What has to be controlled with rigid rules and a proper set of guidelines put in place and forcefully enforced is about payment for playing and, far more importantly, accepting rewards for transferring loyalty from club to club and from county to county.

There is nothing wrong in this, nothing dishonest or underhand. It is simply that the ancient rules of the GAA in regard to what was known as "the parish rule" is no longer enforceable given the flexibility and mobility of people.

What the new GAA committee must address is the very problem outlined above. Strict and inflexible rules must be imposed on all clubs and counties which would take an overall view of the situation in regard to transfers of all sorts.

One way of approaching this would be to make it clear that all transfers from club to club and from county to county would require a specific time to elapse between a player's transfer and his eligibility to play for his new club or county. If this period meant a fairly lengthy absence from the game the attractiveness of transfers would be seriously diminished.

What would be needed here would be a central committee which would have the power to make such decisions and which would administer the system.

When one looks at the chaos which has hit rugby since the introduction of what is euphimistically called the "open" game one can only conclude that rich businessmen with a lot of money and limited commitment to the game are involved in ego tripping.

There are many companies who are sponsoring Gaelic games and activities at the moment who are genuine and who are sincere. There are also "cowboys" out there who love the limelight and there are players, also, who, for many reasons, could be coaxed away from their club or county.

That is understandable but the very nature of the GAA is that it cannot lose the loyalty to club and county on which it was founded. Any diminution of that heritage would be fatal.