Another fixture schedule blunder

For the National League it had been a poor build up to this evening's match against the Irish League at Terryland Park long before Roddy Collins and Dermot Keely agreed to take part in yesterday's Liveline programme on Radio One. After it, though, anyone in Merrion Square who attempted to put on a brave face and claim there is no such thing as bad publicity could have safely expected to be the victim of some sort of physical assault.

As a participant in one or two rather petty radio squabbles over the years I don't want to throw too many stones here but at least my altercations with league managers have been restricted to RTE radio's sports programmes. What precisely Keely and Collins thought they were going to achieve by trading insults on a programme whose listenership will, by and large, have known little and cared less about the ins and outs of their dispute is a mystery.

As it turned out neither man came out of the exchange well and the people listening could easily have been forgiven for getting the impression that a game in need of a bit of talking up was in fact little more than a prop in a feud that predated the decision by Collins to withdraw his players from the National League panel.

Afterwards Keely played down the importance of that decision but then the truth is he would, wouldn't he? It may, as he claimed, have been more or less the toss of a coin between Simon Webb and Jonathan Minnock for a place in the original 18-man-panel but the same can hardly be said of the choice between Kevin Hunt and Ciaran Kavanagh.

With all due respect to the Dubliner, who has been one of the Premier Division's most consistent performers over the past few seasons with UCD, Hunt has stood out at Bohemians as one of the league's finest talents. His absence, like that of Glen Crowe, will have the effect of devaluing this evening's encounter in Galway.

What both managers seem to agree on is the scheduling of the game two nights before a televised Dublin derby - or the scheduling of the televised game two nights after the inter-league match - was a blunder of fairly serious proportions.

Once again the impression given is that the people running the league can't manage something as apparently straightforward as clearing the decks for a important representative fixture.

Keely's solution is that such fixtures should be accompanied by a ban on Friday night fixtures. Keely says: "The league are there to manage." However, the current structure of the league ensures that "the league" (being the officers in Merrion Square) is unable to do anything and whenever attempts have been made to improve their position with regard to the clubs, the proposals have been watered down to the point where they became meaningless.

Things aren't helped at the moment by the fact that we are still waiting for the appointment - or even a decision on when an appointment might be made - of the commissioner with the salary of "at least £50,000".

In theory, this person would be in a position to sort out this type of dispute, but if previous experience has taught us anything it is that the successful candidate will be handed a 12-month contract and then be obliged to spend the last 11 trying to make sure they don't cross the likes of Bohemians.

Still, a few more performances like yesterday's from Dermot and Roddy and the question of how any eventual appointee might assert their independence will be laughable.