Let's hope there are no Junior football matches scheduled in Kerry or Mayo for Monday next. According to the Nenagh Guardian, the Tipperary club Borrisokane were fined £50 for not turning up for their Junior B hurling final on the Monday following Tipperary's defeat of Wexford in the All-Ireland hurling semi-final.

The fine was imposed because Borrisokane failed to field a team against Portroe. North Tipperary County Board chairman Donal Shanahan pointed out that the referee and gate checkers turned up at the venue but there was no sight of Borrisokane. A delegate, Paul McKenna, put forward his club's side of the issue.

"Our under-16s were playing Lorrha the same night. If we had those players available to us we might have been able to play some of them to make up a team. There was also a funeral in the parish that evening which limited our pick still further. We had two lads hurling the night the game took place who had never hurled before, nor are they likely to hurl again."

McKenna went on to say he knew that the lads would not be back in time to fulfil the fixture if Tipperary beat Wexford.

"I knew they wouldn't be back the following evening if Tipp won," McKenna told the hushed meeting, before announcing the coup de grace. "They were going on the beer." Fancy that!

P.S When the match was finally played Borrisokane won 2-12 to 112.

Chris Eubank was different from other boxers - right? Fighting was brutal, dangerous, financially rewarding and savage. He told us so. Beneath the affected waffle and peacock-strutting he said some things which, on the surface, appeared reasonable. Things such as retiring when he had made enough money and not being prepared to put his health on the line with a series of comebacks.

This week, surprise, surprise, Eubank made a another comeback and will appear on the card involving Steve Collins' WBO super-middleweight bout against Welshman Joe Calzaghe. Perhaps illustrating the lack of exciting British fighters (Naseem Hamed aside), promoter Frank Warren is now trying to line the cash-starved fighter up with a match against London's Mark Prince for the WBO inter-continental light-heavyweight crown before facing him against American Roy Jones Jnr. Jones, thought of as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world, probably won't fight Eubank because no one has heard of him in America. But, if Warren could arrange the bout, it would surely rankle with Collins who has been looking for a fight against Jones for a long time.

Problems ahead. Sidelines sees a different solution - but is there the appetite for a shameless third Collins v Eubank bout? Book Millstreet. Watch this space.

The Republic of Ireland women's soccer team launched their World Cup qualifying campaign with a 1-0 win in Belarus last week to the delight of manager Mick Cooke. With Poland and Wales also in the pool, Ireland now look to their game against the Poles in Tolka Park on November 2nd. A victory then would lay a strong foundation for their four remaining matches, the last of which is against Brelarus next June. #

With an exceptionally young side (five are under-20) the team must also take part in a European Championship qualifying event late next month in Spain, involving the host nation, Holland and the Czech Republic. The top two teams from each group qualify for the finals next year.

The game against Belarus was the Irish women's first World Cup outing and goalscorer Rosie Power, who celebrated her 21st birthday just two days before the game, will go down in history as Ireland's first female goalscorer in a World Cup competition. For those who feel like putting their shoulder to the World Cup wheel, Ireland also play at home against Wales on December 7th, against Wales in March and against Belarus on June 27th in their final group game. They must then go through a series of further stages if final qualification is to be assured.

Keeping with international soccer, the Star are searching for six Fair Play flag bearers to lead out the Republic of Ireland team on Saturday, October 11th, for their final World Cup qualifying game against Romania. The young boys and girls, aged between 12 and 16, have to write to the newspapaer and outline, in no more than 50 words, what Fair Play means to them.

It's a novel idea bearing in mind that Mick McCarthy is currently hamstrung because 10 of his players are on the verge of bans for indescretions. Maybe the youngster's explanations could go straight to the players themselves?

The rugby rascals of the Brive v Pontypridd European Cup bloodbath of two weeks ago are trying to get their excuses in first after a tense build up to today's return game in Wales. The home side, Pontypridd, have criticised the European Rugby Cup (ERC) organisers for appointing Ireland's Gordon Black to the potentially explosive affair.

They say they want a more experienced referee than Black, who has handled just one international match - the Ireland v Italy game last season.

It does not seem to occur to the players that the reason they feel they need someone other than Black is because of their own inability to control themselves properly. Unable to sense the public odium that surrounded the last episode, they are now trying to seek protection from themselves by transferring enormous pressure onto the Irish referee!

Pontypridd are saying - `we're so bad, we need to be treated differently'. Sitting third in Pool C, they are probably half right.

It seems that the Australian Sports Drug Agency may still be under the impression that Ireland is a colony of Britain. They recently wrote to the British Sports Council for permission to do an out of competition test on an Irish athlete who was competing in Australia some weeks ago. The Sports Council then wrote to the Irish Amateur Swimming Association on behalf of the Australians, with whom they have a reciprocal arrangement with regard to testing, for permission to do the out of competition test - the Sports Council are still waiting for a reply!

The stupidity of the whole thing is that country A cannot test an athlete from country B without permission from country Bs national federation unless they have made prior agreements.

In short there are a whole batch of countries with agreements in place, another batch with no agreements and a third batch with agreements with some countries but not with others. With co-ordination like that, no wonder doping is still the single most important issue affecting sport today.

Latest Olympic research carried out in August 1996 by Sponsorship Research International (SRI) of London surveyed 4,500 people in nine countries on a variety of issues. Adults in Australia, Brazil, China, Japan, Malaysia, South Africa, Spain, Britain and the USA were canvassed on opinions regarding aspects of the Olympic Games.

Those involved were asked to rate their interest in several global sporting events on a scale of one to five (one indicating no interest, five indicating extreme interest).

The Olympic Games scored highest (3.8), ahead of World Cup football (3.1), the Athletics World Championships (3.0) and Wimbledon (2.6).

In the United States, respondents rated the Olympic Games slightly higher than the Super Bowl (4.1 and 4.0 respectively) and significantly higher than the World Cup which scored just 2.0.

The Olympic rings were also found to be the most recognised symbol in the world. Ninety one per cent felt the rings would be recognised the world over and 86 per cent agreed that the Olympic rings represent the world's top sporting event.

While the bare statistics look impressive, the research also claims that 79 per cent believed that the Olympic Games should have a role to play in world peace . . . Uhh!

Correspondence to this column should be sent to On The Sidelines, c/o the Sports Dept, The Irish Times, D'Olier St, Dublin 2.