Calamity. The GAA's first football quarter-final draw ends in a selection of matches for the most part unwanted by anyone. Then again, what can you do? Luck of the draw.

But in the inaugural year, just as the Sunday night (evening) draw was becoming a bit of an institution, the drama dies. It's a shame that after some spectacular examples of novel matches - Galway-Wicklow, Kildare-Sligo, Mayo-Westmeath, etc - the climax of the open draw should end up swamped by routine fixtures, with the exception of Dublin-Kerry - though even they have met around 20 times in the championship.

The qualifier series climaxed at the weekend and provided vivid evidence of how fast-moving and absorbing the football championship has become this year. On Saturday, Westmeath continued their march with an electric win over Mayo. By Sunday evening that had been displaced in the public consciousness by Galway's win over Cork and Dublin's annihilation of Sligo. A couple of hours later all of this had been overshadowed by the draw.

So the quarter-finals haven't only cast a pall over the next fortnight but also managed to throw a wet blanket over a riveting weekend. The luck of the draw. Yet what other competition can you think of that is so at the mercy of a draw?

The reality is, of course, that the provincial systems rest heavily like a dead hand on the whole GAA world. The reason three of the quarter-finals fill people with ennui is that they have already been played in the provinces, and the public was expecting something fresh and exciting from the draw.

For the teams involved it's also an anti-climax. Most obviously Tyrone certainly didn't want to play Derry, but is the reverse any less true? Joe Brolly said on The Sunday Game that Derry will have played all their matches bar one against Ulster teams and haven't had a run in Croke Park despite as long a qualifying campaign as Galway's.

The bright new horizons have been obscured by claustrophobic, local squabbles. Even Patrick Kavanagh's gods would struggle to create importance out of all this.

For the GAA there is not only the disappointment that something more appetisingly box-office didn't emerge, but also the unending grief that the association has inevitably endured over the whole process. The allegations that the draw was rigged weren't long coming on Sunday night. Why on earth, you ask, would anyone fix that quarter-final line-up? Answers were immediately forthcoming.

Money was the reason the draw was rigged. All those neighbourhood clashes would generate greater revenue than more distant conflicts, such as say Derry-Westmeath. Provincialism was advanced as another motive. In other words, the draw comes as close as possible to guaranteeing that all four provinces will be represented in the semi-finals. Then there is the Nostradamus syndrome. For every possible permutation of Sunday's draw, there'd have been some jackass in a saloon bar claiming they had known all along that such would be the outcome.

To be fair to the GAA, there can hardly be a sports organisation which gets blamed in such a reflex fashion for all inconveniences, both real and perceived, suffered by the public. No one in Croke Park wanted the draw to turn out as it did. In fact, after the fixtures emerged, GAA officials initially wanted to revert to the rehearsed draw, which had thrown up a more palatable selection of fixtures, but that idea was dropped. It is therefore an irony that instead of getting sympathy for the botching of their championship, the GAA instead finds itself arraigned for draw-fixing.

It's like the other type of draw - incidences of which have dramatically reduced - that used always excite the allegation of gold digging. It was never specified how these draws were implemented, who sent down the word, who briefed the referees and why it was done. As one staff member in Croke Park once said, surveying another two weeks of administrative mayhem leading up to an All-Ireland replay: "It's not as if we're on a cut."

After the weekend disappointment and finger-pointing gave way then to further controversy. The draw on Network Two wasn't live. Then again, it doesn't pretend to be. The Sunday Game can't realistically show highlights after the draw has been broadcast. At least it wouldn't be the way any programme-maker would order things. It can't be shown live if it's to get full media exposure the following day, partly because of ever-shortening newspaper deadlines.

The Games Administration Committee (GAC) is the other part of the explanation and also the reason the whole thing can't be held over until Monday. It's all right at this stage of the championship, but back when draws were being made six days before the matches, the GAC's understandable priority was to get the fixtures as soon as possible and start making arrangements for dates and venues.

Problems seem to have arisen only in relation to the quarter-finals, the last draw of the current championship. It was reported in this newspaper yesterday that a bookie had received a call from some fast-buck merchant looking to lay down a few bob on how the pairings might go. The call was made between the draw taking place and its broadcast.

There were also complaints made to RTE's Sportscall - the Wailing Wall of Irish sports broadcasting - that the leaking of the draw had upset people across the country. Yet it's hard to work out how the matter can be resolved.

In the past, the hurling quarter-finals' draw has been made on the six o'clock news the day of the Leinster final. But The Sunday Game protects the draw as a audience puller. Deconstructed, this isn't merely an act of selfishness. It's to keep the majority of viewers and supporters happy, as knowing the next round of fixtures would have to detract from the enjoyment of the day's highlights.

If the live draw is impractical, there's really no satisfactory alternative to the current system.

Limiting the number of people present at the draw and re-emphasising the importance of the embargo can reduce leaks. Such moves won't eliminate the difficulty but, realistically, how many people in the country at large (allowing for a pre-emptive broadcast on one local radio station) did become aware of the fixtures before the appointed time?

Maybe at the end of it all, and even though this is something totally alien to the nature of the Gael, no one's to blame.

In general, the first year of the qualifiers has been a conspicuous success. It's just a pity that they've ended on such a low-key note.