Kildare to wait until Saturday to decide

Kildare are likely to await the outcome of Saturday's Central Council meeting before deciding if they need to take any further action on the substitution controversy surrounding their Leinster football quarter-final defeat against Offaly last Sunday.

The ambiguity over Offaly's apparent use of six substitutes - one more than permitted - was underlined on Monday night when the Leinster Council decided to refer the matter to Central Council, who have the final authority to interpret GAA rules.

While it now seems inevitable Offaly are in some way in breach of the substitute rule, the penalty is still anything but certain. Central Council will meet as scheduled in Croke Park on Saturday afternoon, and their interpretation of Sunday's controversy suddenly becomes the crucial part of their agenda.

The Leinster Council felt they had no choice but to refer the matter for further clarification having heard the arguments of both Kildare and Offaly officials at a specially convened meeting on Monday night. But they've called another special meeting for Saturday evening, when, having been given the interpretation of Central Council, they will make the final call on what exactly to do about the fixture.

What the Leinster Council must ultimately decide is whether Offaly's victory will stand - if it does they will play Wexford on June 18th - or whether to look at alternatives. Under new guidelines passed at last month's Congress, the "automatic forfeiture" of the game for the breaching of such rules is no longer set in stone, and the provincial council have the option of imposing a less dramatic sanction - for example, a fine or awarding the opposition a replay.

The executive of the Kildare County Board met last night to discuss further the implications of Sunday's game, where they lost 3-9 to 0-15. Chairman Syl Merrins wasn't prepared to expand on their likely course of action, describing it as a "very awkward situation" for Kildare.

"We see this purely as a ruling issue," said Merrins, "with regard to the use of substitutions. If there is some loophole there then there are obvious implications for the GAA. This is the last thing we wanted to be involved with. Offaly won the game, but we were on the receiving end of this issue before, so it is a very awkward situation for Kildare.

"We were invited by the Leinster Council to attend their meeting on Monday night. We didn't ask for it. We simply gave our interpretation of the rule, and Offaly gave theirs. But at the end of the day the Leinster Council will have to make the call on this."

All the controversy stems from Offaly's use of a blood substitution, with Pascal Kellaghan being temporarily replaced by James Coughlan in the first half. Kellaghan came back on to the field at the start of the second half, as is permitted, but instead of Coughlan he replaced Trevor Phelan - which is not permitted. He also failed to get the necessary clearance from the linesman. Given Offaly used their full allocation of five substitutes it appears some breach of the rule is a foregone conclusion.

And yet Michael Delaney, the chairman of the Leinster Council with years of experience within the GAA, still felt the Central Council needed to give their interpretation of the rule: "We felt we had to do this for clarity in case Kildare decided to lodge an objection to the result, which could be appealed up to Central Council and even to the DRA (Disputes Resolution Authority).

"So in order to try and speed things up in the middle of our championship we would short-circuit the matter, and decided to bring the issue to Central Council and get them to interpret the rule, and that should sort things out once and for all, not alone for us but possibly for others down the road.

"The Leinster Council are the committee in charge of the fixture and based on the interpretation that we will get from Central Council we will then apply that interpretation as to exactly what happened last Sunday."

Offaly have a strong case that the extra substitute - if it's interpreted that way - didn't give them any advantage as they made the final replacement in the last minute of the game. Kildare, however, played the last 10 minutes with only 14 men when Karl Ennis had to leave the field through injury, and by then they'd used up their five permitted substitutes.

The GAA's Official Guide refers to Central Council as "the final authority to interpret the rules" and that, it seems, effectively means deciding if five divides into six, and nothing carries over.