WHEN Dublin and Offaly chose to stage their donnybrook in Donnycarney three weeks ago they did precisely the wrong thing at precisely the worst time in exactly the wrong place.

At no other time in the GAA's history has there been so much pressure for heavy sanctions against those becoming involved in brawls. In no other province is there a ruling council so willing to mete out heavy punishments. In no other venue was a second round underage provincial match likely to attract so much national media attention. No other inter county competition represented such an perfect target for a disciplinary body looking to make a point.

The fallout from the disciplinary measures imposed by Wednesday's meeting of the Leinster Council of the GAA will be most keenly felt in Dublin where, apart from losing the right to advance in this year's under 21 competition or compete in next year's, the county has lost two figures who might have been considered crucial to the future of the county senior team, Dave Billings and Damien Bolger.

Dublin surprised many people in 1995 when they chose Mickey Whelan as manager of the senior football team. Among the most surprised were Billings, Whelan's club mate at St Vincent's, and Tommy Lyons, the manager of the successful Kilmacud Crokes side. Both men were considered to have been within an ace of securing the job.

Lyons went on to take control of the Offaly senior footballers. Billings booked himself in for another year of managing the Dublin under 21s. When Dublin football people looked ahead to who would succeed Whelan when his term was up conventional wisdom deemed the so called dream ticket of Billings, Lyons and Paddy Canning of Erin's Isle to be the solution.

Davey Billings, a gregarious and popular figure within Dublin GAA, is the sort of man the association is built upon, incessantly and passionately involved with teams of all ages. He is a graduate of UCD and a lifelong member of St Vincent's.

A long serving figure on the periphery of the great Dublin teams - and a hurler of note - he is also one of the few successful players and trainers to have made the jump to committee work and is considered an accomplished sports administrator and politician within the association.

He quit working with the Dublin under 21 team after the 1996 season and looked set to be replaced by Anto McCaul of Ballymun. "However, McCaul's work commitments forced him to step down and as late as the beginning of February Dublin had no manager for their under 21 side.

Billings finally came back for another tour of duty when the county board's failure to find a replacement manager made it look as if there would be no Dublin under 21 team entered in this year's championship.

A strong believer in the long term value of good youth structures (not something Dublin have always emphasised, the county went a full decade without bothering to enter the under 21 championship) Billings saw the under 21 team as a crucial link in keeping talented minors on the boil as they matured into senior footballers.

Neither the referee's report nor the video evidence which were considered by the Leinster Council on Wednesday were conclusive in Billings's case, but in the hothouse atmosphere of the show trial Billings was suspended on the basis of the word of opposition players.

Video evidence apparently shows Billings entering the pitch, while Dublin defender Paul Croft was being attended to. Billings sought to speak urgently to his corner forward Ray Cosgrove but had trouble separating Cosgrove from his marker and some open handed pushes were exchanged.

When Billings is next seen a football is being hurled at him and he is being pushed from behind. Fighting is beginning to break out. Billings heads back towards the bench where he sits out the remainder of the fracas.

Dublin players and Billings claim that nothing more sinister than an open handed push took place. If all hell hadn't broken loose no attention would have been paid. The referee's rather ambiguous report seems to concur. However, Offaly players claim that a blow was struck and all hell broke loose precisely because of Billings's intervention.

Billings has kept his counsel this week. Those close to him say he is concerned primarily about the suspensions meted out to his players whom he feels dealt honestly and honourably with the Leinster Council last Wednesday. He is worried too about sanctions against Dublin as a whole. The county development structures, he feels, have been damaged in the long term.

Billings quietly accepts that he allowed himself to become embroiled unnecessarily late in the game and should be punished for that but aspects of the business of last Wednesday night have left a sour taste within Dublin GAA circles.

There is frustration that young players, however culpable in this instance, have been made to carry the can for the GAA's failure to address the problems which Gaelic football in the modern era faces.

Liam Mulvihill's thoughtful report to this year's annual congress looks at Gaelic football and points to problems with the playing rules, the disciplinary rules, the disciplinary structures, the match officiating, the coaching and the attitude of team managers within the game.

The under 21s of Offaly and Dublin came to blows within those parameters. It is argued in Dublin especially that the "bland mark" punishments meted out don't represent the GAA "getting tough" on the discipline issue but the Leinster Council, one of the GAA's five disciplinary bodies, getting tough. If a precise replica of the Parnell Park brawl could be choreographed in another part of the country what is the likelihood of the same set of sentences being handed down, they ask.

In Dublin, where GAA memories are long, there has been a festering resentment towards the Leinster Council and some of its personnel for two decades now. The sight of former referee Seamus Aldridge presiding in his capacity of vice chairman of the council on Wednesday night will have raised a few hackles. Aldridge clashed memorably with Dublin's Tony Hanahoe in 1978 and has been considered a bete noir for the county ever since.

Dublin's troubles with the Leinster Council stretch back almost as far as that particular personality clash. Instance, Jimmy Keaveney's suspension in 1979, Dublin's refusal several years ago to enter a team for the O'Byrne Cup, the reluctant handing over of a video of the Dublin Laois under 21 game three years ago.

Interestingly the Dublin video cameras trained on the Parnell Park game missed the melee entirely.

Dublin county board officials have said privately that they resent not just the severity of the sentences but the manner in which the hearing was handled.

Foremost among the complaints are the fact that the Offaly delegation had at least a week in which to study the video evidence (filmed by Offaly midfielder Ciaran McManus's sister) while Dublin had no access to it.

There are claims also that the video evidence at best provided an incomplete and imbalanced record of what happened. It is argued also that the misdemeanours of one or two more established stars were overlooked.

Both Dublin and Offaly felt that however heinous their offences both sets of players had acted honourably in dealing with the Leinster Council, admitting their guilt and apologising profusely. The atmosphere between the delegations from Dublin and Offaly at the hearing was described as being warm and cordial.

Ultimately, however, it was felt that in the current climate Dublin and to a lesser extent Offaly ended up carrying the can for the association's broader failings.

It is pointed out that despite the attention heaped upon the senior participants in last year's All Ireland football final brawl the subsequent sentences were more lenient and had little long term effect on the fortunes of the counties concerned. Furthermore, this year's GAA congress appears not to be taking specific steps to remedy football's ills despite the well advertised need for a redrafting of football fundamentals.

IN other words Gaelic football games this summer will take place in precisely the same circumstances as Dublin and Offaly played in, managers will encroach on the field of play, coaches will encourage players to take the risk, the players who run half the length of a pitch to engage in fist fights which don't concern them will still get away with it.

The Leinster Council will argue, with some justification, that they took the steps they considered necessary in the light of what by common consent was one of the worst outbreaks of violence to disfigure.a game in some time. Few things after all bring the game into more disrepute than one young - footballer kicking another while he lies on - the ground.

However, in the absence of any long term remedies there are no winners in this story, just losers.

The current Dublin under 21 team, despite the belated appointment of their manager, were seamed with more potential than any other team to have represented the county in that competition since the mid 1970s.

Backboned by members of the minor team which won the Leinster title in 1994 half a dozen or more of the panel seem destined for senior football with Dublin. Damien Bolger, Ian Robertson, Barry Gogarty, Ciaran Whelan, Paul Croft, Jason Sherlock and Ray Cosgrove have already been involved with the senior team.

The sudden halt to Bolger's progress will be seen as a particular loss. A product of the careful nurturing of underage players by the Ballyboden St Enda's club, Bolger was a substitute on the 1994 Dublin minor team which lost the All Ireland semi final having been prominent in their progress to that point. His star rose further 12 months later when he played a leading role in his club's 1995 Dublin senior championship win, though he was still a minor.

His bustling play is augmented by efficient place kicking. Latterly he has been on the fringes of the Dublin senior team and, with the apparent stagnation of the career of Shay Keogh from St Sylvester's, was seen as the likely long term replacement for Charlie Redmond.

Appeals and further wrangling seem inevitable and in Dublin this week there has even been angry talk of a possible legal challenge to the Leinster Council's decision to ban Dublin from two successive under 21 championships. The Dublin team and management met as a group on Thursday evening an decided tab press forward with the appeals process.

Dave Billings, the football man who took the job rather than see Dublin suffer from neglecting the grade, must be wondering what it's all about.