He proposed six bedrock changes to the way discipline is administered in the association and asked that the Rule Book Task Force consider them and bring them for debate before Congress "at the earliest possible date".

That date is likely to be next April's Congress in Sligo.

"It is regrettable and annoying, " said Brennan, "that we had a number of players who committed serious offences this year yet sought to have the proposed punishment overturned, succeeding in a number of cases, supposedly on the back of technicalities.

This, I must add, was done with the support of their respective administrative unitsf When a serious wrong has been perpetuated, individuals must take personal responsibility and there is a clear onus on GAA officials to also accept responsibility when one of their players or members is involved. Some of what went on in this context has been very disappointing.

This cannot be allowed to continue."

At the top of Brennan's agenda is the Central Appeals Committee, the make-up of which he wants to overhaul wholesale. He proposes that all eight members of the CAC come from legal backgrounds and, crucially given the ludicrous collapses of various cases over the past two years, that they don't already serve on an existing GAA committee. Also, he proposes that no more than three CAC members should be needed at any one time to hear an appeal.

Beyond the CAC, Brennan also proposed the establishment of a Video Review Panel for instances where something missed by a referee could be examined retrospectively. Any player charged with an offence by this panel, should, Brennan said, be treated exactly as he would had he been sent off in a game, ie, he should be ineligible to play until such time as his case has been heard by the Central Hearing Committee. This would avoid a scenario whereby a player can stall the issue by seeking clarification or failing to attend his hearing for whatever reason. Brennan also called for clarity, fairness and consistency in the system but left delegates in no doubt that although in the vast majority of cases players accepted their punishment . . .

as happened in 151 of the 168 cases this year . . . it was the high-profile instances that had brought about the culture he wants to change.

"What is difficult to change is the culture of people speaking out of both sides of their mouth at the same time regarding discipline in our association. The GAA has been badly let down this year by some players, team officials and county officials who challenged penalties when there was blatantly clear evidence regarding the offences.

"I have no problem accepting that there might be flaws in what I'm proposing because I'm speaking from the heart here. The Rule Book Task Force might find holes in it and that's totally fine because this is an evolving thing. There just seems to be a lot more stable doors to be bolted these days."

Earlier, delegates passed the motion to change the format for next summer's hurling championship, meaning that the format passed at Congress last April will now be scrapped without a game having been played. Under the new system . . . passed by 55 votes to 17 . . . Galway and Antrim will play each other in the first round of All Ireland qualifiers, with the winners playing the team defeated in the first round of the Leinster Championship and the losers playing their Munster counterparts. The qualifiers will proceed as a knock-out competition, doing away with the round-robin aspect of the past three seasons. There were objections from both Antrim and Galway but, despite widespread admission that the new system was far from perfect and will surely be changed again in the future, it got the two-thirds majority it needed.