Dublin county board buy 26 acres in Rathcoole

DURING his address to Saturday's Dublin County Board convention, chairman John Bailey announced that the board had just the day before concluded the purchase of 26 acres of land in Rathcoole. It is intended to cater for the promotion of games in the south and west of the county.

Secretary John Costello referred to the site in his report to convention and said that it would be developed into a centre of excellence with four or five pitches, changing facilities and standing accommodation for spectators. This will be widely used for training by all our county teams and for the staging of colleges and local championship games.

Former chairman Jimmy Grey, a member of Croke Park's hurling work group. successfully steered through the proposals for reform of the All-Ireland championship, chiefly concerning the re-entry of the defeated finalists from Munster and Leinster into the All-Ireland. They now go forward to April's Congress in London where a decision will be made on their implementation for a two-year trial period next year.

The passage of the proposals on Saturday wasn't without disagreement and a number of delegates pointed out that an open draw would be the most effective method of reforming hurling. Grey responded by saying that the open draw would not have a chance of passing Congress and that the current proposals gave reform its best chance. The motion was passed, 146-80.

In the recommendations category. Kilmacud Crokes' call for the establishment of two separate teams in the National Football League north and south Dublin was heavily beaten. The case for the idea was made on the basis that it would give more people a closer affinity with their League representatives. that it would mean a home match in the county every football weekend and that it would be financially beneficial to have two entitlements to the League share-out each year.

Opposition to the proposal included pointing out that the county as a whole had only Just won the All-Ireland for the first time in 12 years and that a combined effort had yielded mediocre League income in the last two years. It was also mentioned that hurling would suffer in the clubs because more players would be on inter-county duty.

Further evidence of the cooling atmosphere surrounding support for the repeal of Rule 21 (prohibiting members of the northern security forces from joining the GAA) could be found in the defeat of a Civil Service motion calling on the GAA to hold the Special Congress, for the consideration of the matter, that was agreed to at last year's Congress should circumstances in the six counties call for such action".