THERE WILL be a pitch inspection in Limerick and Clones today to adjudicate on Sunday’s scheduled Munster and Ulster senior football finals. Both the Leinster football and hurling deciders have already been called off and postponed until after Christmas.

Munster PRO Jim Forbes is optimistic the match between Cork’s Nemo Rangers and Dr Crokes of Kerry will go ahead.

“At the moment I’d be fairly positive,” he said. “There’s been a good thaw and a lot of the frost is gone. Of course a hard freeze would undo a lot of that but we’ll be taking a look in the morning and making a decision then.”

In Ulster the inspection will be this afternoon but a final decision may not be made until later in the weekend, according to provincial secretary Danny Murphy: “We’ll be carrying out the inspection and if the match is unlikely to be played we’ll call it off there and then but if there’s still a chance of it going ahead the decision will be left until Saturday or even Sunday.

“There’s been a definite improvement but we’ve had ferocious snow in the province over the last week, with record low temperatures of minus 13 and minus 14 so we won’t know what state the pitches are in underneath until there’s been a thaw.”

There is greater pressure on Ulster than other provinces to complete their fixtures, as the winners of Crossmaglen and Naomh Conall are drawn to play the British champions Neasden Gaels.

The weather has already impacted on next year’s schedules in a roundabout way. A fixtures meeting of the Central Competitions Control Committee, including the provincial secretaries, has already been twice postponed, which is causing problems for Croke Park.

GAA information officer Alan Milton said it was hoped to convene the meeting next week. “It’s become quite urgent, as we’re unlikely to sign off on the fixtures after one meeting. Next year’s diary for instance is waiting on the information.”

Meanwhile, a motion to Roscommon’s annual convention proposes that AFL clubs who recruit Gaelic footballers be asked to pay thousands of euro in compensation. Put forward by the Kilglass Gaels club, the provision, if introduced, would set a figure of up to €20,000 as appropriate restitution to the club which developed a player who heads Down Under.

Kilglass Gaels delegate Charlie Reynolds said such a rule might reduce the number of young Irish players going for trials with agents like Ricky Nixon, while also compensating clubs for the work put in developing the player at underage.

“Every year we are seeing more and more players called up to trials for AFL clubs. Every club has worries that their star player will be taken off to Australia, which could affect the club for 10 years. Maybe if there was a financial burden on the AFL it might stop them bringing so many,” said Reynolds.

During the 1980s, Paul Earley and Tom Grehan left Roscommon to play in the VFL (precursor to the AFL) with the Melbourne Demons, but both returned to the county scene soon afterwards.

Earley became the first Irish recruit to play in the professional league but made just one appearance, in 1984, whereas Grehan left before making the senior list, having been drafted in 1988.

“It is very tough for a clubs to recover from losing a top player or two. They are trained all the way up by the club’s mentors and trainers and for them to be taken like that is difficult to cope with. Such a loss to a community, club and county needs to be compensated,” Reynolds added.

The motion is, however, unlikely to succeed as it’s hard to see how such a stipulation could be made binding on any of parties involved in the recruitment process.

Finally, amongst all the high-profile titles now in the shops, including the 2010 Sports Book of the Year The Club by Christy O’Connor, a couple of more local publications have also been launched.

One is Roscrea Hurling Club’s seventh edition of A Year in the Red, a review of the club’s activities during the past 12 months from the under-sixes to senior level, as well as sections on the local schools, recent redevelopment work at the club plus some nostalgic looking back at past players and club successes.

The second is to mark the 125th anniversary of Wexford’s Glynn Barntown, one of the oldest clubs in the country, which has been written by Jim McGovern and John Wickham. Over the years the club has produced a GAA president Micheál Kehoe (1949-52) and more recently, the county’s 1996 All-Ireland winning full forward Garry Laffan.