GAELIC GAMES: The GAA is facing a potential fixture crisis over the decision to stage the Ulster football final replay at Croke Park on Saturday week. The date had already been set aside by the Leinster Council for any replay that next Sunday's final might require.

"It's a very vexed and sore point," was the reaction of Leinster secretary Michael Delaney. "Our replay is fixed for Saturday, July 23rd, and as things stand we don't have a venue. It's traditional when the provinces meet early in the year that the date of the replay is pencilled in.

"We made sure that our replay would be the Saturday after because we wanted our losing finalists to have 13 days' break before the qualifier. That was the clear understanding."

The announcement that the drawn Armagh-Tyrone final would be replayed on the 23rd of this month was made after the match on Sunday following consultation between the Ulster Council and the representatives of the Croke Park stadium management.

Although the stadium company was remaining silent on the matter yesterday it is understood that the effective double booking arose because of an oversight. In other words, no one was aware of the situation when the Ulster Council was given the go-ahead.

"We checked the availability of Croke Park," according to the Ulster secretary Danny Murphy, "and were told that the venue was booked on the 24th for the hurling quarter-finals, but was free the day before. That weekend was always our replay date."

There is a certain irony to this whole matter because the Ulster final was moved forward to last weekend in order to play it in Croke Park because the scheduled date of the province's final clashed with next week's Leinster equivalent.

At present, an accommodation looks unlikely. According to Murphy the matter will be soon out of Ulster's hands.

"We have to print tickets and make arrangements. Waiting until we know the result of next Sunday won't be possible. But the problem may not arise and if it does, it will be dealt with."

Croke Park will certainly be busy before the end of this month. Yesterday, it was announced that the All-Ireland hurling quarter-finals would be staged as expected at the headquarters venue.

On Sunday week, July 24th, Cork will face Waterford on a double bill with Wexford v Clare at Croke Park. Kilkenny v Limerick and Galway v Tipperary are scheduled for the following weekend.

Meanwhile, GAA president Seán Kelly has expressed his satisfaction with the hurling qualifiers, despite some criticism that the two groups had been predictable and involved very heavy defeats for some teams.

"Looking at the last round of the games," he said, "teams that have been competing have been improving. The benefit of the qualifiers is going to take a few years before the value of it is seen.

"Teams like Offaly and Dublin, who had been getting trouncings improved with the extra games and over a period of years the idea is that the standard will rise."

He also pointed out that the presence of eight strong counties in the All-Ireland senior quarter-finals for the first time meant that hurling was now attracting far more interest and exposure than had been the case in years gone by when the two All-Ireland semi-finals were played on one double bill at Croke Park, virtually never even filling the venue.

"Up to a few years ago people could say we mightn't even have two competitive semi-finals. Now we can say that we've eight good teams in the quarter-final.

"Any system that gets that has to be a good one. We've done that without demeaning the provincial championships and while giving everyone extra games."

Kelly also commented on reports of the disruption at Croke Park of the minute's silence for the victims of last week's London bombings. There had been some isolated shouts during the general observance amongst the 60,000 attendance.

"We decided to have a minute's silence at all matches on Sunday in memory of those who were killed by the bombs in London. That was almost totally observed.

"Where there was a problem you'd have to first establish first what was the reason for it.

"I have been in various places where a few louts would have shouted in the middle of a minute's silence, either because they didn't fully understand what was going on, or maybe were trying to show bravado.

"But certainly if the motivation was to disrespect the memory of those who died it would have to be utterly and totally condemned because nobody in their right mind would ever show disrespect to anyone who was being buried and especially those who had been killed as tragically as those in London. You are talking though about a very small minority."