Tis' a wonder entirely to An Fear Rua the way the Yanks are wasting time and money dropping bombs and cruise missiles beyond in Yugoslavia...

Better by far for them to unleash a couple of hundred GAA players on Slobodan Milosevic and his murderous crew of Balkans. These would be men who not afraid to 'go in on the ground', as some of the nancy boys of NATO appear to be. No indeed. Events of the past few weeks would suggest that not a few of our Gaelic stalwarts are well-versed in the art of hand to hand combat and other aspects of the martial arts.

A 21 years old County Galway footballer from the Caherlistrane club was sentenced to nine months in jail for a serious assault on another player - now said to be no longer able to function as a husband or a father. Could any sport or medal justify a life sentence like that on a man? And An Fear Rua thought Caherlistrane was famous up to now only as the birthplace of the renowned red headed singer, Dolores Keane and her Aunties Sarah and Rita.!

Wicklow player Stephen Byrne was suspended for six months for striking Westmeath goalkeeper Dermot Ryan in the infamous 'Battle of the Tunnel' during a National Football League game at Mullingar. An Fear Rua recalls that the last time the Irish were involved in a battle for a tunnel was back in the old days in the former Belgian Congo, when Irish UN troops successfully captured the railway tunnel in Leopoldville from the Congolese! An Fear Rua understands there were more wounded at the battle in Mullingar - at least the Balubas knew when to quit.

In a club game in Derry, up to fifty people swung punches at each other

At Abbeyleix, County Laois, the hurlers of that county and those of Dublin lashed into one another with hurleys flailing and mentors and fans falling around like nine pins. Would that those self-same hurlers could hit the sliotar as well, An Fear Rua contemplates ruefully, and they might not be languishing in the nether regions of their League divisions.

Wexford football manager JJ Barrett - by many accounts a decent and learned Kerry man (and they don't come more decent nor learned than in Kerry) - got a two years suspension for planting a dig squarely on the jaw of the misfortunate referee, Superintendent Michael Curley.

And these are only the outrages that have come to light at inter-county level or through the courts.

Now comes the startling revelation that the lads above in the Ceannáras are handing out IR£1.5 million a year to victims of GAA injuries. Apparently, about five thousand players make claims every year. Astonishingly, the GAA has admitted it does not carry insurance for such eventualities, but rather grudgingly, pays out small amounts even for relatively serious injuries. In ainm Dé, says An Fear Rua, how can anyone justify such a prehistoric approach to compensation in this day and age? This is all very well, until some fine day and player takes a very serious injury to the higher courts and receives, say, a half a million pounds in compensation? Unlikely? Get out of it.... Sure, a few years ago, even falling down a pothole in Dublin City got you IR£10,000 easy enough in compensation. Army deafness won't be in it with GAA claims if that particular ball game gets kicked off by some of the smart boyo solicitors.

An Fear Rua doesn't always like to admit it - at least not in polite company - but he has a couple of pals among the legal eagles down in the Four Courts, though they can't tell one end of a camán from the other, God help them. They tell him that there have already been a few 'hush hush' out of court settlements, rather than face the rigour of a compensation award by a superior court. Maybe this is something the new Director of Corporate and Financial Affairs at headquarters could look into, if he or she (indeed it could be one of the fairer sex. Why not? , enquires an Fear Rua. Aren't they making a great fist of the Ladies football?) can find the time in between 'playing a key role on the management team encompassing strategic financial planning and advisory services' and doing 'superior business administration'.

An Fear Rua notes that many of the worst incidents appear to occur at gaelic football matches. What is it about that particular game that excites these base passions? Some of an Fear Rua's friends in, say Kerry or Meath, might not agree with him, but it can hardly be the excitement engendered by watching thirty fellas in the lashings of windy rain running after a sodden ball, with a dejected referee trying to catch up with them. When it comes to skill, speed, accuracy, stamina and grace there is simply no comparison with the game of hurling. And yet until recent years, when the big-time sponsors stepped in, hurling was often treated by the Croke Park lads as the stepchild of the GAA family.

Anyway, what is to be done about this? A bit of a 'no brainer' really, as An Fear Rua heard one of the Gowlnacalley-John Redmonds minors remark recently in Ma Molloy's snug, after he had drunk a large bottle or two too many of Guinness (No harm in recompensing good sponsors the boys and girls of Gowlnacalley always say). Let's have clearer, simpler rules in gaelic football. Let's select and train our referees more consistently and develop a system of examinations and referee inspectors like the soccer crowd. And let's have an open, clear and transparent tariff of punishments for offences and appeals.

That way, maybe even that right Balkan Slobodan Milosevic might get a night's sleep and not be worrying about an invasion of hurley-wielding GAA men.. Although An Fear Rua well remembers the old Gowlnacalley-John Redmonds marching song from the Emergency years: "Hurrah! Hurrah! The stout camán... No Saxon steel can match its blow...". Never was a truer word sung.....