It would make for a healthy start if the GAA, like the alcoholic, were to admit publicly and sincerely that the problem exists. Once it gets the rules in order it can then tackle the equally important problem of standards of refereeing and interpretation of the rules.

Over the Bar by Brendan O hEithir GIVEN the week that's in it, let's start with a lyric from a U2 song.

"How long must we sing this song?" If Joe Brolly can quip that he could write poems about the souldestroying tendencies of the old knockout championship, then every GAA correspondent could knock out verses on the GAA and discipline.

O hEithir wrote about it in 1984; there were probably people writing about it in 1884. Everyone has tried to come up with a new way of saying the same thing, but inevitably, like Bono, you end up repeating yourself. How long must we sing this song?

When will someone within the GAA shout, "Stop"?

Sean Kelly, for all his admirable qualities, has not been that someone; instead he has been in denial about his association's problem. While he was quick in deeming events in Omagh as "totally unacceptable", the following day he was telling reporters to have a sense of perspective.

"Last year, " he claimed, "there wasn't any problem of this nature." Would he say that to Dessie Dolan who had his jaw broken in an off-the-ball incident that wasn't deemed worthy of investigation? Didn't last year start off with the inadequacies of the GAA's disciplinary systems being highlighted in court after another Westmeath footballer, Kenny Larkin, had his jaw broken?

Was he unfamiliar with the Laois hurling final which left a 16-year-old hospitalised?

Was he out of the country last June when in one weekend, seven players were sent off in two games in Ulster and another . . . the drawn CavanTyrone game . . . featured 56 fouls and both teams having to be kept apart at the end?

The reality is up until August and games like, ironically, the two classics that last Sunday's protagonists conjured up, championship 2005 had been a dreadfully uninspiring affair with hardly a game free from the incessant pushing matches that were again evident last Sunday. Omagh wasn't exceptional. It was inevitable.

It was also Groundhog Day.

Two years to the day we again had what was a desperately nasty game which Paddy Russell couldn't control, again the Tipperary man had shown two yellow cards to Stephen O'Neill and again Dublin went to extreme measures to send out a message to the reigning All Ireland champions. Twenty-one times that afternoon they fouled inside the Tyrone half of the field, nine times alone in the first 12 minutes of the second half.

At the time we criticised Kelly for "failing to see the [2003] All Ireland final for what it was and failing to set up a football development committee to go with its hurling counterpart". Eight months later he would set up the rules revision committee but its members lacked both time and, in too many cases, expertise and commitment.

Although dozens of third-level graduates around the country are undertaking detailed, scientific studies into Gaelic games, Kelly's committee just made a series of off-the-top-ofthe-head recommendations, none of which survived for the championship.

As important an issue as the opening of Croke Park was, Kelly, like most GAA blazers, has failed to identify what O hEithir rightly pinpointed as the most pressing issue of all. The GAA as it is currently constituted is an unworthy guardian to what is potentially the world's best big-ball field game but right now is only operating at 70 per cent of that potential.

While Mickey Harte's postmatch comments were largely admirable, especially his admission that, "God almighty couldn't have refereed that game", some of them did not stand up to scrutiny. He told reporters to "look at our [Tyrone's] record", but any such investigation shows his team in a mixed light. In the 2003 league final, Gavin Devlin applied his boot to Colm Parkinson's head. Their two matches against Derry that year were mean-spirited eyesores, especially the replay. In the infamous All Ireland semi-final against Kerry they committed 38 aggressive fouls, Colm Cooper was bitten on the hand, while in the closing minutes, the same player was caught by the jersey and thrown to the ground by Ryan McMenamin. That year's All Ireland final was an abomination, while in Tyrone's last two defeats in Croke Park, we've had McMenamin punch a Mayo forward from behind and then jump, kneesdown, on John McEntee (receiving only a yellow card each time).

Even in the closing minutes of their All Ireland triumph, something which had been preceded by over four hours of wonderful, sporting football from Tyrone, there was the depressing sight of Peter Canavan, the player of his generation, dragging down his successor to that title to prevent the Gooch creating an equalising goal. In many quarters, it was considered a smart play. In a sport with a higher level of moral reasoning, it would have been seen as cheating.

It's a word that's rarely spoken but so often demonstrated in Gaelic football . . .

cheating. In 2004 Dr Aidan Moran, UCD head of psychology, his colleague Tadhg MacIntyre and former Dublin footballer Noel McCaffrey, conducted a study into Irish sportspeople's attitudes towards cheating. They found Gaelic footballers to be particularly ambiguous on the subject. One player claimed, "The referee knows that people are going to try and take advantage so I think the onus is more on himf If you get half a chance to steal a few yards or hold someone's jersey off the ball, you're going to do it."

The study also found that the sanctions in sports, but especially football, were not severe enough. That's why players cheat. That's how we get games like Omagh. If you allow defenders to keep holding the jerseys of Owen Mulligan and Stephen O'Neill, then you're going to get pushing matches. And if you get pushing matches, eventually you're going to get boxing matches.

The obvious sanction would be to dock both sides two points but the GAA's Official Guide and the CDC's regulations are too inflexible to allow that. The Irish Times' Sean Moran rightly recommended the citing of Rule 140 and charging everyone involved in mass brawling with discrediting the association, a suspension which carries eight weeks. It will take more than one ruling to prevent further Omaghs though.

The power of congress must be diluted. Peter Quinn's strategic review committee recommended the establishment of a games committee which could report as a subcommittee to Central Council and regularly review playing rules and appropriate disciplinary penalties. As of now, you have to wait five years and get a two-thirds majority at congress to change a playing rule.

But why? Why should a free only be taken where the foul was committed? Right now it's ingrained in players to stand in front of an opponent wanting to take a free.

Not only does this prevent the quick free but it increases the likelihood of the free being taken from the wrong spot and the referee throwing the ball up. Let the attacking team take the free either a further 13 yards up the field or within a five-metre radius, with the onus being on the defensive team to get out of the way. For every straight red card and fourth yellow card a team is shown, let the opposing team have a penalty. Reintroduce the sin bin, bring in a team foul count like in basketball. Do something.

At the core of it all is the win-at-all-costs mentality, exemplified by Paul Caffrey's comments. He and his team can be pardoned for not giving a guard of honour; reportedly they had asked a Tyrone official for two minutes' notice of when Tyrone would be hitting the field but the knock on the door never came. And in a way, all he did last Sunday was articulate an ethos the GAA itself has institutionalised; what other message was it sending out by running so many competitions for so long by pure knockout? Runners-up aren't given recognition on provincial or All Ireland final day beyond the cliched three cheers. That must change.

Shortly before his death in 1970, Vince Lombardi, the famed American football coach who coined the popular term, "Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing", said, "I wish to hell I'd never said the damned thing. I meant the effort, I meant having a goal. I sure as hell didn't mean for people to crush human values and morality."

Last Sunday Gaelic footballers did precisely that. And so some will again this Sunday and Sunday after Sunday. Until someone shouts stop, until someone is seriously hurt.