St Brigid's to attend hearing over alleged incident

Club representatives from St Brigid's and St Patrick's have been invited to attend tomorrow night's meeting of the Leinster Council, when the province's Games Administration Committee will address an alleged disciplinary incident following their championship quarter-final in Dundalk last Saturday week.

The game ended in a one-point victory for the first-time Dublin champions St Brigid's, but afterwards St Patrick's, the Louth champions, lodged an official complaint with the Leinster Council, alleging that one of the St Brigid's players started a scuffle with one of their mentors as the teams left the field.

The incident wasn't raised in the referee's official report, but was deemed serious enough by the Leinster Council to warrant a further investigation.

It is understood, however, that St Brigid's will be strongly defending their player, known to be one of their prominent forwards.

A decision on any possible suspension is expected to be made on the night, which may yet rule the player out of the Dublin club's Leinster semi-final against Longford champions Clonguish in Mullingar this Sunday.

The other semi-final, which is to be broadcast live from Carlow on TG4, involves Kildare champions Round Towers and first-time Laois champions Arles-Kilcruise.

Already Arles-Kilcruise have become the story of the current club championship, rising from total obscurity to potential Leinster champions in one giant leap of recognition.

Their presence in the semi-final final is impressive in terms of timing alone, with their quarter-final win over O'Hanrahan's of Carlow on Sunday coming less than 24 hours after they had collected their first Laois county title.

Even more impressive is that this is a club just eight years in existence, and with a tiny pool of players from the village situated on the road between Portlaoise and Carlow.

While a club in Arles had been founded by three parishes in the area in 1961, Arles-Kilcruise only came about after a controversial split in 1994. Since then they moved from winning the county B title in 1995 and the junior football title in 1996 to the intermediate title in 1997 - before last weekend's ultimate breakthrough.

They had also progressed to win titles in all four divisions of the county league.

The chairman of the club is JJ Conway, who has four sons on the current panel - full back and captain Paudge, midfielder James, wing forward Chris and substitute David. The club also benefits from the services of Ross Munnelly, one of the key members in the Laois team which collected the Leinster football title last summer.

The club has plans to expand on a pace similar to its rate of success. New club grounds were purchased two years ago and will be completed in the spring.

In the meantime, preparations for the Leinster semi-final will continue in a rented field in the area.