On GAA: The nature of some reactions to last Sunday's women's football final misrepresented, however benign the intentions, a couple of important aspects of where the game now stands.

Reaction to the size of the crowd was downbeat although 23,358 seemed to be an acceptable enough turnout. There were some fears the crowd could dip below 20,000 this year, which would have been a second successive drop and a worrying indicator that the game was losing its appeal or at least its momentum.

Dublin and Mayo attracted around 30,000 two years ago and might have gone higher but for poor weather on the day. Twelve months later Dublin were back in the final but the occasion unsuccessfully battled the glum sense in the capital that the previous year had been their big chance plus the absence of the well-supported Mayo team - as well as a scandalous piece of mismanagement.

With their women in a first senior final in nearly 30 years, Galway's GAA authorities set the men's club final for the same afternoon. This was bound to have impacted on the attendance and it was duly down 10,000.

Last weekend Cork and Galway surpassed the gloomier projections and for the figure to recover this year and rise a few thousand was a satisfactory development, particularly when the television audience was also up, showing an audience share of 27 per cent.

The second quibble I'd have with some of the match discussion is that the All-Ireland women's final shouldn't be seen as something women don't sufficiently support but rather as an event that all sections of the GAA community could get behind in larger numbers.

It's nearly six years since the National Forum on Women in Gaelic Games first raised in a coherent, considered fashion the question of women's interaction with the GAA.

Neither the camogie nor women's football associations come under the aegis of the GAA. "It is one of my dearest and fondest ambitions that there be a strategic alliance under the one umbrella which would facilitate reaching a greater potential," said then GAA president Joe McDonagh.

The theme of the forum was that alliance, the consideration of how the development of women's sports might be assisted by closer links with Croke Park and vice versa.

Increased funding, greater access to facilities and streamlined administration were to be among the most prominent of these benefits but the GAA would also benefit from the introduction of fresh talent into the administrative and coaching spheres.

It's questionable whether the enthusiasm at that meeting in January 2000 has been entirely vindicated but the alliance project continues. Naturally there are red-tape tangles and microcosmic tensions but in a more positive light the activities that underpin the remarkable progress of the women's games continue.

That impetus can be seen any weekend morning at clubs all around the country. The earliest age groups are thoroughly mixed with boys and girls playing football and hurling together.

Into this welcome evolution swung GAA president Seán Kelly last August with his much-pilloried comments on women's involvement with Gaelic games. Ironically his comments in the programme for the Dublin-Tyrone replay and the women's match between the same counties stirred more media noise than women's games managed all year.

"The thought struck me that we should have a 'Queen of Fashion' at big days in Croker," he wrote. "Select the best dressed of the ladies, march them around the field after the band and then present the winner with her prize - a day at the races or a day in the bog, two tickets for the All-Ireland final, etc . . . "

There's not much you can usefully add to that beyond pointing out Kelly's programme notes have been frequently eccentric all summer on a range of issues.

It was to be expected the women's organisation would react angrily to the clumsy sexism of the comments but they shouldn't be taken as the complete picture.

For a start it is one of the great aspects of big days in Croke Park that so many families and women attend. That - rather than the appearance and garb of the women - is the good-news story for the GAA and one implicitly referenced by Kelly in the paragraph that followed the contentious one above.

"More seriously though, I am thrilled that we have a ladies' game as a major curtain-raiser today. A natural fit. Two great ladies' teams. The GAA as a family organisation truly in action. Welcome ladies. Looking forward to seeing your great skills and commitment. Enjoy the occasion - first of many, I hope."

Kelly has been around long enough to know the more respectful tone of the second passage wasn't going to be enough to save him from the consequences of the Benny Hill stuff. But it should in fairness be remembered in the president's defence he pushed for the double bill when there wasn't exactly a consensus in favour of it at Croke Park. And Kelly was right to make the case. For all the women who work within the GAA, lending their talents and free time to help run clubs and assist in coaching and make possible the involvement of girls from an early age and for the girls themselves, it is important their game be recognised as deserving of its place on the big stage.

Similarly the murmuring about whether Croke Park is in its enormity suitable for All-Ireland finals attracting small crowds is wrong and misplaced. I know a man who refused to let his family of daughters inhibit his dreams of rearing footballers and his hard work at club level contributes hugely to the ability of a lot of girls to share those ambitions.

It is only right those footballers and camogie players can go to big occasions in Croke Park and see the stars of their game playing in the stadium their clubs helped to build as well as nurturing their own dreams of playing there at some stage of an imagined future.

In an ideal world the involvement of women within Gaelic games would be recognised by the wider GAA community on occasions like last Sunday by the simple act of attending and acknowledging everyone's dreams count. But in the absence of big crowds great feats still take place and mean as much to those who make them happen.

smoran@irish-times.ie