Next year's National League finals have been provisionally fixed for the last two Sundays in April, the 23rd and 30th. This is believed to be a response to some unhappiness on the part of sponsors Allianz at the staging of last year's NHL decider on the bank holiday Monday in May, the second time in three seasons this had happened.

"The complete programme for next year's leagues have been drawn up and the finals provisionally fixed," according to a Croke Park source, "but they won't be released until next week when the dates and venues are finalised and run past the sponsors."

National League action begins on the weekend of February 5th with the first series of NFL matches. As in previous years, there will be a number of floodlit games in venues which offer the facility: Páirc Uí Rinn in Cork, Austin Stack Park in Tralee and Dublin's Parnell Park.

Last year the season began with the first floodlit fixture on a Friday, the meeting of Cork and Kerry.

There will an added consideration in 2006, in that Setanta Sports hold the rights to the live broadcast of floodlit matches, whereas TG4 will continue to broadcast fixtures on a Sunday.

Meanwhile, there is some good news for Kilkenny's hurlers. Centrefielder Derek Lyng, twice an All Star, has said his knee injury won't keep him out of action for longer than the Christmas break.

"I was down in Waterford at the hospital and told that I'd need an operation on the cartilage. I don't know exactly when I'm getting it, but it's not going to keep me out for longer than five or six weeks. I met someone who said he'd heard I was out for a year. I said that was news to me."

This encouraging development comes just after the depressing news that Conor Phelan, one of the most highly regarded of the up-and-coming hurlers in Kilkenny, has had to retire from sport because of a faulty cardiac valve. The flaw emerged when the county board had all players screened after county full back Noel Hickey was diagnosed with a viral heart condition and forced to miss this year's championship.

Unlike Hickey, who has now recovered, Phelan won't be able to resume his playing career.

Finally, Mickey Moran has included David Brady, the Ballina Stephenites centrefielder, in his first panel for next season's NFL. Brady controversially retired from intercounty football last year after being named in John Maughan's panel, but is believed to have reconsidered his decision now that the county is under new management.

Contrary to a report in yesterday's edition, the Cork v Clare Munster SH championship match will be played on May 28th, not May 25th, and the Munster final on June 25th, not June 24th.