Armagh's Oisin McConville and Kerry forward Colm Cooper have had to pull out of the Vodafone Allstars trip to San Diego which departs on Wednesday.

McConville picked up food poisoning on Armagh's trip to Mauritius last week and is continuing to feel the ill-effects.

Cooper has withdrawn from the squad for personal reasons.

Donegal midfielder John Gildea and Galway player Joe Bergin have been drafted into the squad.

The football Allstars of 2002 will play the Allstars of 2001 in an exhibition game at the University of San Diego on Saturday next.

Joe's surprise

Joe Kernan, just back from Armagh's trip to Mauritius, and Galway boss John O'Mahony will manage the two squads.

Kernan is in charge of the 2002 panel which will now include seven of his own Armagh team.

The Armagh boss, meanwhile, received the This is Your Life treatment on Tuesday evening at the Carrickdale Hotel near Newry.

Several hundred people turned out to surprise Armagh's favourite son.

These included Dublin great Paddy Cullen and ex-Kerry stars Ger Power and Ger O'Keeffe.

Joe's mother Joan was present and she said afterwards that she wished the manager's father could have been there to see the great night.

"Joe lost his father when he was 11. He would have been so proud of him tonight," said Mrs Kernan.

Championship the priority

Meanwhile, Kernan, manager of All-Ireland champions Armagh, has downplayed the importance of the Allianz National League which begins next month.

Although the National League begins in February - three months before the curtain goes up on the Ulster Championship - Kernan is in no doubt where his priorities lie.

"The Championship is what matters, that is what everybody talks about," said Kernan who won the Sam Maguire in his first year in charge of the Orchard County.

"We play Monaghan in the Championship - there is no other match we can afford to think about."

Every player in the Association should aspire to play in Croke Park GAA president-elect Sean Kelly

Armagh will be back at the scene of the All-Ireland triumph when they open their NFL campaign against Dublin at Croke Park on 2 February.

The other counties in Division 1A of the Allianz-backed league are Tyrone, Donegal, Roscommon, Cork, Galway and Kerry.

Kernan is likely to use the league games to introduce promising newcomers to the senior inter-county scene.

The Armagh v Monaghan match is scheduled for Sunday 11 May.

Meanwhile, incoming GAA president Sean Kelly plans to set up a second-tier All-Ireland championship, to ensure that weaker counties get games at Croke Park.

If implemented, weaker counties would play in a competition that would effectively be the old All-Ireland 'B' Championship in another guise.

Minor losers

However, the somewhat derogatory name would be dropped and changed to something like the All-Ireland Shield.

The plan is that the final would be played as a curtain raiser to the normal All-Ireland finals in September.

"Every player in the Association should aspire to play in Croke Park but unfortunately that's not realistic under the current structures," said Kelly.

If adopted, minor matches would lose their status as traditional curtain raisers on championship match-days,

However as successful minor teams tend to come from the prominent counties anyway, many feel the loss would not be so great when balanced against the potential gains in weaker counties.