Tipperary's Shane McGrath and Jamie Nagle of Waterford will not miss any inter-county action even if they are hit with 12-week suspensions.

The pair face the threat of a three-month ban each after being accused of playing illegally for Mary Immaculate College in a third level competition, but it has been confirmed by officials in the higher education board that the suspensions will only affect playing at colleges level.

Both McGrath and Nagle are currently doing an 18-month post graduate course in primary school teaching at Mary I, along with Darragh Egan, and it had been speculated that the course did not carry the sufficient credits to cover them to play in colleges' competition.

However, Higher Education Michael Mallie has denied that the trio have been specifically targeted for investigation.

Mallie told the Irish Star: "What we normally do every January, before the championships start, is ask every college to pick out three or four players and we then ask for clarification and proof that they're doing the course they're registered for.

"This is not a witch hunt because we simply can't dragnet through 5,000 players, which is the number of players playing in the third level sector at this moment." Tweet

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