The Munster Council are attempting to sort out the club fixtures' chaos caused by the weekend monsoons. According to provincial secretary Donie Nealon, the hurling semi-final between Ballygunner of Waterford and Clare's Clarecastle will take place this weekend although it has yet to be decided whether the venue will be Walsh Park or Thurles.

It is believed that any further significant rainfall this week will rule out the Waterford venue and the fixture will be switched to the excellent surface at Semple Stadium.

The delay in staging the semi-final means that the final has had to be deferred. Due to be played next Sunday, the match between Patrickswell and the eventual winners of the outstanding semi-final is likely to be moved to December 7th.

This may cause difficulty in Limerick who had requested the Munster Council not to stage the final on that day as they didn't want Patrickswell's match to clash with the county convention. The county may now be asked to switch its convention back a day to Saturday 6th. The venue for the final is likely to be Thurles.

Further problems for Munster have been caused by the late postponement of the Laune Rangers-Castlehaven football semi-final. Nealon accepted last night that because of the NFL programme this weekend, it was unlikely that the club match could be refixed for next Sunday or even Saturday as Cork travel to Down that day for the following day's Section D match.

In that case, Laune and Castlehaven will meet on the same day as the hurling final. This will mean that the football final, between the winners and Tipperary's Fethard, will be put back a week to December 14th - which creates another fixture difficulty as the Munster champions are meant to be playing their British counterparts in an All-Ireland quarterfinal, which is usually held before Christmas.

One man who is particularly affected by all of this is Cork and Castlehaven footballer Niall Cahalane who is currently under investigation for an incident following the county final replay in which Castlehaven lost to divisional side Beara.

Video pictures of Cahalane shoving match referee Niall Barrett were screened on RTE last week. Whereas the evidence doesn't support the more lurid allegations about the player's conduct which got into circulation, it certainly leaves the veteran defender open to a hefty suspension.

He has replied to a county board request that he account for his actions and now awaits the setting of a date for the hearing. If he is to play against Laune on December 7th, the hearing will need to be held within the next fortnight.

The three graduations applied to "interference" on match officials in Rule 136 (b) are: 1, "abusive or threatening language or conduct" - two months; 2, "any type of physical interference" - six months; 3, "any type of assault" - 12 months and team liable to disqualification.

Cahalane's action theoretically leaves him open to any of the three suspensions but 2 and 3 look more likely.