Paraic Duffy reckons the GAA's new intercounty Master Fixtures Plan will be of major benefit to clubs.

The Association's director-general singles out the lack of county games in April as the most obvious positive from clubs' perspectives, although he reasons that club championship matches are unlikely to be played so early in the year.

Duffy also points out that a scenario could still arise where county managers prevent their players from representing their clubs:

"Personally, I think you'll find that not many counties will play club championship matches in April," the Monaghan man is quoted by RTE. "If you look at it another way, by the 15th of July there will be four teams left in the hurling championship. I think most teams will say that they'll play their club championships after that.

"In football, by the 8th of July, there will be eight teams left so I think you're going to see championships being played in July, August and September.

"In April, I think you're going to have a lot of league games in counties, giving a regular series of games. The real issue is, will managers let county players play? And that's something that every county has to work out for themselves.

"We can't enforce that. That will probably be an issue. But the weekends are there exclusively for clubs so it should make a huge difference."

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