TWO ASPECTS of managerial behaviour are relevant how they prepare their teams and how they conduct themselves during a match. In the case of Dublin Offaly, the latter point comes into sharp focus because Dublin manager Dave Billings's incursion on to the pitch - regardless of what he actually did in his encounter with Offaly's John Ryan - triggered the fighting.

He was unlucky to the extent that a tussle between a manager and an opposition player isn't that unusual (which tells you something) but once it became a focal point of disturbance, Billings had to walk the plank - particularly as he was the adult responsible for an under age team.

The actual preparation of teams has been the subject of much highminded waffle. Bemoaning the win at all costs mentality is futile in highly organised, intensely competitive sport. Winning is what the GAA is all about. The association's most important and prestigious competitions are its championships which, with few exceptions, are run on a sudden death basis. Lose and your season is over.

It's hardly surprising therefore that managers get wound up but, short of bugging dressing rooms, it's hard to know how the GAA aim to monitor team preparations. The only way to deal with indiscipline, of either the reckless or calculated variety, is to make it counterproductive use the win at all costs mentality against indiscipline.

If cumulative and appropriate suspensions were in force, persistent foulers would lose the status of saloon bar heroes and become a bit of a joke. Managers would have to reconsider the advisability of selecting individuals whose lack of discipline constantly undermined the collective effort.

Managers who encroach on the pitch have in recent years been subject to nothing more inhibiting than the running up of fines for their county boards. Given the relations between some managers and their county boards, the intended deterrent was more of an incentive. Confinement to the dugout and the prohibition of sideline coaching should be enforced by strict sideline bans. Runners can be used to communicate positional switches.