Dublin GAA chief executive John Costello has expressed regret over the decision not to make Croke Park available for any of counties' National Football League matches this season.

"We were told that it wouldn't be available for league fixtures after the rugby internationals (because of pitch maintenance). It's regrettable that the league isn't starting with a high-profile fixture under lights, like our match with Tyrone last year.

"We're due to play Meath this season and that could have generated similar excitement."

The Division Two meeting of the two Leinster rivals, who packed out Croke Park twice during last year's Leinster championship, is scheduled as part of the final programme of regulation matches next April and even were the headquarters venue available, much of the fixture's appeal would depend on how the campaign had gone for both counties.

Had the opportunity been availed of to arrange the meeting as part of the opening weekend's programme Croke Park wouldn't have been available, as the Ireland-Italy Six Nations rugby international is scheduled for the exact day on which the NFL commences, the corresponding weekend to last year's Dublin-Tyrone match, which inaugurated the floodlights at the ground and which attracted a record league attendance of 81,678.

Meanwhile, the head of Dublin City University's School of Health and Human Performance, Dr Niall Moyna, has said that, ideally, third-level colleges should not be included in the provincial pre-season tournaments.

"Fundamentally I'd say that they shouldn't be in it, but the real value is in the control it gives teams over their players," he said.

Moyna, a member of the committee that produced the report on player burnout, who also coaches DCU and took the college to its first Sigerson Cup triumph two seasons ago, has been consistently critical of the demands placed on young players at intercounty level.

Rules governing the pre-season tournaments stipulate that the colleges have first choice of players, ahead of their counties.

Moyna said that he sympathises with intercounty managers even if he believes some of their training regimes to be unacceptably extreme.

"They're under enormous pressure to succeed and appointed for two or three years so their concern isn't with the long-term development of the game in their counties or the interests of individual players.

"I'm not under that sort of pressure. It doesn't matter whether we get knocked out in the first round - it's not to affect my position.

"It's up to county boards to take a more pro-active role. I'd be in favour of the appointment of a sports science officer to monitor the training burden on individual players in each county."

He admitted that he is surprised by the amount of hostility towards the third-level sector that has been stirred in the aftermath of the burnout report, which is being portrayed in some quarters as showing favouritism towards the colleges.

"I'm very surprised and taken aback by some of the comments. Teams are guaranteed no more than three games in the league - we won it after six - and you could be out of the Sigerson after one match. We've trained eight times in 12 weeks since the start of the season. That's not excessive."

Finally Dublin's O'Byrne Cup semi-final, scheduled for Parnell Park next Saturday at 5pm, will go ahead despite the postponement of the quarter-final between Carlow and Wexford, which was called off because of bad weather on Sunday.

The counties will instead play their fixture under lights this evening at Horeswood Throw in will be at 8pm.

Next weekend's other semi-final between Longford and DCU will take place in Longford on Sunday at 2pm.