League measured by depth it plummets

Another week passes for the National League, the three leading teams in the Premier Division consolidate their positions at the top of the table, the champions slip further off the pace and the bottom two sink deeper into trouble. Nothing too remarkable there.

Behind the scenes, though, it has been a case of two steps forward, one step back with growing support from legal quarters for the FAI's official line that the Wimbledon move is a non-starter, but with problems closer to home providing a reminder that many of the criticisms hurled at the local game during the course of the Dublin Dons debate were not without some foundation.

Last week it was announced that the Harp Lager FAI Cup first round draw was to be put back from this Friday night (two letters arrived in the post yesterday, one an invitation for the original date and the second a note announcing the switch to the following Tuesday) because somebody had twigged that holding the draw an hour and a half before 10 (or 12) of the 22 teams were scheduled to play might not be entirely convenient for all concerned.

When the penny finally dropped, it was the potential difficulty which the timing might cause for clubs, which prompted the switch not any concern for the press coverage of the event.

Week in, week out there are articles in programmes around the country bemoaning the fact that the National League does not get the coverage that it deserves but then the draw for our most important cup competition is put into head-to-head competition for space with five (or six) games, preview material on the rest of the weekend and a Premiership programme that includes Saturday morning's meeting between Liverpool and Manchester United. Still, it's all sorted out now. As you will probably have noticed, there is the question of precisely how many games the draw would have clashed with if held on Friday night. Normally this would be entirely straightforward because normally on a Monday everybody knows when and where each club will play that weekend.

This week should have been equally straightforward but unfortunately it's not because the league were saying that the match between St Patrick's Athletic and Finn Harps would take place on Sunday while St Patrick's were insisting that the game would be played on Friday after securing agreement with Finn Harps.

The League's preference was based on an agreement between the four Dublin-based Premier Division clubs who regularly play under lights on a Friday. Apparently, under the terms of this agreement, all four agreed to give Dublin derbies a free run in the capital on Fridays and move any competing game to a different time.

And after much confusion it was finally announced last night that the game would indeed go ahead on Friday.

The fact that St Patrick's are carrying out their threat means the agreement is as good as dead and Bohemians may play Dundalk on Friday week while Pat Dolan's team play Shelbourne down the road. But apart from that, the insistence of a club spokesperson yesterday that the club had had no indication from anyone (League representatives say that Michael Hyland went to last Friday's game at Inchicore and a follow-up fax was sent on Saturday) that the game should be played on Sunday is remarkable.

Asked for his opinion on the situation, meanwhile, Pat Byrne claimed to know nothing about the decision but remarked that "it would certainly be contrary to what was agreed, it's only right that we do this for each other because the derbies are the biggest games for all of us. They (St Patrick's) have adhered to the agreement before and I would expect them to do so again in this case."

Ironically, while all the St Patrick's/Finn Harps confusion was going on, the League marketing subcommittee was scheduled to meet in Merrion Square last night.

Elsewhere, a quarter of those on the National League's refereeing panel were ruled out of action until late January as a result of their failure, for a variety of reasons, to complete the fitness tests at the latest of the FAI's seminars.

Ten of those who were due to take part couldn't attend because they were either unwell or unavailable due to work commitments, while a further two who did travel to Belfield on Saturday did not complete the test. All involved must now do so when the next seminar is held in the new year before they can again be allocated National League matches.

"It was," said Paddy Daly "disappointing because the seminars are very expensive to organise and you would never have that number of people pulling out of matches they were assigned to over a weekend."

None of these things, of course, are all that serious in the greater scheme of things. They just go to show, though, that in a week during which the threat of a big gun from across the water blowing all of the league's plans for the future apart appeared to recede, there is little reason to become complacent.

There has been a lot of talk about the league becoming far more professional, a week like this makes that all sound just a little bit hollow.