International Rules: Leading GAA officials arrived in Dubai yesterday for a meeting with the Australian Football League (AFL), where it is expected the International Rules will be confirmed as a biennial event. This means there will be no Test series after this season until Ireland travel to Australia in 2008.

Several rules changes will also be suggested when GAA president Nickey Brennan, director general Liam Mulvihill and commercial manger Dermot Power meet AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou, operations manager Adrian Anderson and projects officer Dean Moore today.

"There was a meeting of past Irish managers and captains, along with another meeting with the players from last year, so obviously what they recommended set the agenda for us," said Power yesterday from Dubai.

Power is confident of a positive outcome after initial talks in January smoothed over any lingering tensions arising from the violent scenes that marred last year's second Test in Melbourne.

There are no plans to abolish the hybrid game.

"There was a very strong danger that (abolition) could have happened after the last series, but I think the meeting in January has put everything back on track and I would hope we can reach some sort of agreement out of this meeting. But whatever we agree will have to go back to Central Council to be ratified," added Power.

Back in January it was agreed that any player who receives a red card cannot return to the game and a penalty is awarded, regardless of where the offence occurs on the field.

A joint disciplinary panel is to be formed to deal with violent cases.

Under the present yellow card system a player is sinbinned for 15 minutes with another player replacing him. The Irish contingent will seek to have a yellow card offender ruled out for the remainder a game.

The GAA head of games Pat Daly identified four rule changes being brought forward by the delegation.

"At the moment you can carry the ball for 15 metres, so they will seek to reduce that along with the number of interchange players permitted. Our guys will be talking about a very significant reduction of interchange players - down to only four players per quarter.

"The time per quarter will also hopefully be reduced. It's 20 minutes per quarter at present but with our senior players only playing 70 minutes, we will seek some sort of compromise.

"The other issue is the numbers on the sideline. There will be a lot more control over the line than there was in Australia last year when it was a bit chaotic."

Despite completely dominating the recent Test series, the AFL representatives may not be so accommodating, as these changes would bring the game more into line with Gaelic football.

The first Test takes place at Pearse Stadium in Galway on the weekend of October 28th/29th before a return to Croke Park a week later.

Presuming planning permission is granted at both grounds, these matches will be played under floodlights on a Saturday evening.