Global climate isn't the only phenomenon changing at an unrecognisable pace. Monday's report by the GAA's Competitions Work Group is part of a process that has seen the inter-county scene change radically in recent years and with bewildering speed, given the usual tectonic rate of progress.

It's little over five years since the current hurling championship system was adopted. Judging by some of the contributions at that congress debate in London, the dilution of the knockout format presaged the end of the world. Now the principle has been widely accepted and extended to football.

This week's report was drawn up on the basis of a number of terms of reference. Perhaps the most relevant of them was the final one: "Make proposals on how best to achieve a stable, long-term structure for senior inter-county championships and leagues." We can assume the word "optimum" in this, as the old systems and structures were stable and long-term all right but were stagnant and stifling the GAA.

The principle of starting both the national leagues in February has been accepted for a while and was part of the recommendations of the inter-county work group at last October's special congress. Apart from a mystifying blip on the screen when the hurling development committee decided, for reasons not entirely clear, that the National Hurling League should revert to an autumn start (the idea was abandoned due to a poor reception), the calendar year in both codes has been accepted for a while.

Within the competitions work group report are a number of innovative proposals that would be of great benefit if accepted by Central Council. One of the most welcome references is, however, largely aspirational.

Appendix One lays out a sample NHL schedule. It contains fixtures for a nine-team Division One: Cork, Waterford, Wexford, Clare, Galway, Offaly, Kilkenny, Limerick and Tipperary.

This would entail a reversion to a sensibly sized top flight. Four years ago, the eight-team Division One in the first season of calendar-year scheduling proved very successful with decent, competitive matches a feature of every week's programme.

Ever since, instead of building on the success of the format, the NHL has featured a two-section first division containing between 12 and 14 teams divided into groups of six or seven. In hurling terms it's been a disaster. Unattractive to spectators and mostly useless to team managers, it was a feature that needed reform.

We're not to get it until 2003 at the earliest. The argument runs that the league structure can't be changed until teams have had an opportunity to make the cut. In other words, the bottom teams in the current Division One shouldn't be stripped of their status when they were unaware during the league that such a cull was coming. If anyone's feeling radical about such niceties, try and sell a five- or six-county reduction in the size of Division One to Central Council - especially to the delegates of the five or six counties involved.

According to the draft schedule for next spring's NHL, there wouldn't be the time for seven or eight matches to be played ahead of play-offs with everyone getting out in time for the championship. The obvious solution is to make the league a conventional round-robin with the top team winning the trophy. Then it could run all the way up to the championship, giving spectators decent matches and providing competitive fixtures for teams coming up to the summer.

Enhanced gate receipts in a properly ordered Division One would make up for any loss of revenue from the lack of semi-finals and finals - and judging by the trend in attendances at such matches, that shortfall wouldn't be enormous.

On the subject of revenue there is also a suggestion that counties keep their home receipts. This would reward teams taking the league seriously but there might be grumbling that the removal of the redistributive element would mean that counties with big travelling support would get nothing from their away matches.

There is also a very welcome restatement of principles in relation to club and county championships. Counties will be punished for abandoning such competitions to concentrate on their inter-county team. Such counties, according to the work group, "are effectively seeking to gain an advantage over opposing counties that adhere to the Central Council policy that proper status be given to the club championships and that an adequate and streamlined competition schedule be provided".

The proposal is for an happy medium between squeezing inter-county panels' time for preparation and condemning ordinary club players to months of inactivity. This sees the cordoning off of certain competitions, county championships, and increasing the time available for their conclusion by clearing the autumn schedules. But by way of balance, it proposes that other competitions, county leagues, must go ahead in certain circumstances without county players being available to their clubs.

A proposal that football's International Rules series be put back to November to minimise any clashes with club matches is unlikely to succeed. Although the early series, 1984-90, were held later than the current Tests, Australian Rules has changed in the meantime. It is now fully professional with a longer season and an earlier return for pre-season training. Australian players struggle as it is to fit in International Rules and get holidays before going back. Pushing the series back will hardly suit them.

One vitally important issue is addressed under the heading, "Third level/U21. Burnout." As training schedules have escalated, so too the demands on players with varied commitments. Those involved at under-21 and senior level and also with third-level colleges can find themselves playing for a large number of teams. Brian Corcoran was supposed to have played for 12 teams one year during his dual pomp.

The work group has made proposals for greater flexibility in the scheduling of under-21 championships and also for the prioritising of third-level competitions when county activity is low-key. Most significantly there is reference to the appointment of a high performance director in Ulster. This is in conjunction with the establishment of a centre of excellence in the University of Ulster at Jordanstown. A similar initiative is being planned on a national level.

The function of this role will be to monitor the physical demands on players and the training programmes being administered by the various teams with whom an individual is involved. It will help to "streamline training programmes and ensure that players are not exposed to the type of training demands that results in burnout and/or overuse injuries".

All in all, this report has done a good and significant job in a short space of time.