That's the way it should work.

We shouldn't attempt to be everywhere and that's the situation this week. I'd hate to be misunderstood here . . . I'm a great rugby man myself. I was a founder member of the rugby club in Tuam and played a bit, albeit at a very low level.

But I do feel that the entire country is not hung up on Munster and Leinster and that an awful lot of it is actually hype. I've never seen the like of it and truth be told it is completely over the top.

It's not a final and although Leinster versus Munster in a European semi-final is special and will be a great occasion, it is not such a huge deal that everybody else has to bend their knees to it. In Galway no one could care less about Munster and Leinster.

Farmers down here in the market aren't driving themselves mad, pondering over who will win all that ball from Drico and the boys. And it's the same situation in Kerry. There aren't 15 Kerry men on the Munster team. The guys that follow Austin Stacks and Dromid Pearses, they'd don't care about Shaun Payne or Gary Connolly or Christian Cullen.

The game isn't at 3.30 because 20,000 Kerry men want to support Christian Cullen? My ass. All sporting life does not have to stop just because one event is on but it's what people are trying to do here.

The GAA should simply have got on with it. I would even go as far as to say that the league finals should have been on in Croke Park. They are talking rubbish when they talk about geographic considerations. They are insulting our intelligence on that front.

When does any sporting body give consideration to supporters? That sort of thinking does not exist, nor ever has existed. Truth be told, the GAA are just afraid that there might be a small crowd in Croke Park, that people might say you are clashing with the rugby and all that. Basically it is just a fear.

They panicked and they just lurched from one crisis to another. They said this can't be at 3.30 but we'll put on the Division Two final at that time . . . we must do that because there is an Ulster county involved. I bet if the Donegal match was at 5.30 as well, the Ulster Council would have said something. Word would have come down from that direction. But they are on the phone from one to another saying, ?What'll we do? what'll we do?" . . . it's complete Killinaskully thinking. In fairness, the GAA showed enormous courage and confidence in opening Croke Park. They rightly earned a lot of kudos for that. It showed a confident, forward-thinking body in a new age, but now they are showing none of those traits.

Nobody wants to hang around all day on a Sunday in Limerick and because of this I know loads of people who are not going. They've just said it's too long to wait and it is completely understandable.

And even the teams have been badly affected by this.

They've to go back to Dublin or to colleges around the country and they don't want to be down there late in the evening either. There is absolutely no need for this at all. If the game was at 3.30, we'd go to the game and we'd catch the rugby later on video or DVD or whatever. Galway met Kerry two years ago in a harmless game of league football and there are conflicting reports of whether there was 23,000 or 27,000 there to watch it. I would say there'll be about 6,000 at this. The GAA should have gone and done their own thing and not got sucked into all the hype down the road.

I have a feeling that if Sean Kelly was making these fixtures they would have turned out differently. It's not that they are running scared. It's that they are running confused.