SRATEGIC REVIEW 2002/ANALYSIS: Whereas the proposals on Dublin are the most striking in the GAA's Strategic Review, they are just part of an overall concern to optimise the administration of the association.

The principal difficulty for a committee like this was always going to be the extent to which best practice would be compromised in favour of what might be seen as practical or realistic. Committee chairman Peter Quinn admits as much in his preface to the report. "Running an organisation like the GAA requires unique skills. It is necessary to balance idealism with pragmatism..."

At the media conference he was at pains to point out that the proposed administrative reforms had been designed from scratch and that any similarity to the old structures was co-incidental. Yet it was clear that the committee had been guided by the need to maintain a representative body in Central Council, even if its composition is to be reviewed and its functions more tightly focused.

It remains to be seen whether such reforms are a) accepted and b) successful in the long term. One supposes that a Central Council comprised of county chairman will carry more status - a key element in the proposal - but only time will tell if it can operate more efficiently.

Initial impressions suggest that an hierarchical overview was undertaken. Some functions have been devolved from annual congress to Central Council; some from Central Council to the Management Committee, which has been overhauled to include two nominees of the president and to drop the two GAA trustees.

Provincial councils have become more line managers than controllers of their own fiefdoms, with interventionist powers to implement central policy in the counties and clubs under their jurisdictions.

The proposed beefing-up of the executive ranks - including a new marketing department - at head-office level puts back on the agenda a series of appointments that should have been made two years ago.

Time will tell if these reforms can develop an organisation with the capacity not merely to implement necessary change but to respond quickly to ever-quickening tempo of the challenges facing the association.

The splitting of Dublin into two separate county units with the Liffey as the boundary is the most eye-catching proposal of the Review. But it reflects a more widespread concern about the crisis in the capital. In population terms the statistics justify the radical approach: Even split, the two new units would still be individually more populous than any other county; their separate populations still outnumber the entirety of Connacht.

Quinn and Munster chairman Christy Cooney, who chaired the sub-committee on Dublin, both stressed that this was just part of an overall strategy for the capital and that substantial resources would be made available to implement that plan.

At first glance the division places a greater onus on the southern region. Even now, despite the strides made by clubs south of the river in the last 10 years or so, the balance of inter-county players continues to favour the northside.

There is no suitable venue on the southside for staging National League fixtures and the suggestion that Croke Park would be available for championship games doesn't solve that problem. The Dublin county board baled out of Croke Park for NFL purposes over five years ago because it was too big and expensive to maintain for the more modest League crowds,

Similarly the evolution of the games in the southern suburbs has been greatly driven by the so-called super clubs - Kilmacud Crokes, Ballyboden, Thomas Davis etc - which might come into conflict with the cap on catchment areas at 25,000 in the city.

The decision basically to approve last year's defeated Roscommon motion on Rule 42 comes with the proviso that the new pitch at Croke Park be given the chance to settle. In a roundabout way this confirms what we all already knew - that the clamps have been slapped on any reform of the rule at this year's congress.

In a way the thrust of other proposals may make such reform unnecessary. Now that Central Council is to be encouraged to take up some of the powers of congress, the precise text of Rule 42 - prohibiting at GAA venues any games not sanctioned by Central Council - can be actually implemented.

The games have received some attention, much of it welcome. Reducing football to 13-a-side, for the NFL in 2003 and '04 is worth a try and more than justified by developments in fitness and equipment. Similarly the proposed introduction of the inter-change system familiar from International Rules, makes a lot of sense by speeding up both the process of replacement and the game in general.

Indiscipline is addressed with a long overdue suggestion that new offences be introduced to punish provocation and the type of felon-setting that has become such a disagreeable phenomenon recently.

There are other worthy proposals buried in the 264 pages of the review. The recognition of the role women have to play states the case for integration simply and effectively: "Formal integration of Gaelic football, women's football, hurling and camogie is necessary if the task of promoting Gaelic games to 50 per cent of the population is not to be left entirely to two very committed and energetic bodies which, as things stand, have too few resources and very little finance."