NICKEY BRENNAN is in the home straight of his term as GAA president. Any new initiative by the Kilkenny man will, in all likelihood, have to be carried on by president elect Christy Cooney, so all legacy issues are all but cast in stone at this juncture.

Yesterday, at the launch of TG4's upcoming 10-part series charting momentous periods in the association's 125-year history, Brennan spoke about the most topical issue in Gaelic Games, the experimental rules.

"I decided to go to Newbridge so I was wondering on Sunday night what all the fuss was about. I never saw a yellow or red card at all.

"I would have to compliment the team mentors and managers for their measured approach at the weekend. I think people understood it was the start of an experiment. They were accepting that maybe there might be some tweaking."

Despite the wriggle room to change certain elements of the experimental rules, probably after seeing how well they work in hurling this weekend, Brennan reiterated the GAA executive's determination to see them through to April's Congress when delegates will decide if they have a future.

"There will be no pulling these rules out during the course of the league, that's simply not going to happen, and hopefully people will get more used to it every weekend as the games go by.

"And I would say to be fair to the mentors as well, there was a level of tutoring of the players as to what they should and shouldn't do and I think players should be conscious of that.

"So look, it is only one week, we shouldn't get over-excited about it one way or the other. January is going to be the learning period and when it gets into the league people should be well up to speed about what the rules are all about."

Brennan said the lessons of 2005, when the sin-bin experiment was dropped after widespread criticism from inter-county managers in January, have been learned.

"I don't want to be unfair to people who went before me but maybe we didn't educate people (enough) but I think, to be fair, this whole process is well over a year in gestation. If people don't know what's going on now I don't think they can blame us for it.

"We backed off very easily the last time. That's not going to happen this time. I just want to make that absolutely clear. People are reviewing this on an ongoing basis.

"What we want to get is absolute consistency on this. What we also want to emphasis is that if players are making a genuinely reasonable attempt to play the ball that it may be a foul but players will be given the benefit of the doubt."

Brennan also stood firm regarding the new intercounty break period.

"I would be vehemently opposed to revisiting this. I spent a lot of time with players in San Francisco (on the recent All Star tour) and I can assure you the players I was with were delighted with the close season, not just from a physical point of view, where they were able to do their own work in gyms and what not, but from a mental point of view as well.

"The notion of revisiting the (break) is not on my agenda."