THE LAST POINT: Fixing Gaelic Football no easy task

For all the noise and tumult surrounding Gaelic football right now, the direction it has taken in recent years and where it might be heading and the entertainment value provided, there are times when you think 'there's not much wrong with this game' and sometimes it can come in the most unexpected places.

Pairc Naomh Mhuire seem like a unlikely spot for revelations on the future of Gaelic football but in the weeks since I witnessed the U20 footballers of St Mary's Kiltoghert and Mac Diarmada Gaels do battle in a low-key Cox's Steakhouse U20 Championship first round match, it's pretty inescapable that when teams want to play good football, they most certainly can.

Granted, basing analysis on one game can be suspect - the U20 grade might not be regarded quite as important as the adult grades and both teams were missing a few players thanks to a Tuesday evening in the middle of Exam and Holiday season but there were enough talent on show and enough good football played in a positive spirit, under current rules, that can have you believing that there's not much wrong with the game.

Mac Diarmada Gaels won on a scarcely believable scoreline of 2-22 to 5-10 with the game in the balance right until the final whistle - scores flowed an incredible rate, St Mary's hit two goals inside the first minute but the Kiltubrid and Ballinamore Sean O'Heslins combo hit back with 2-10 before halftime to hold a one point lead.

It helps when you have players on the field like Paul Moran, Ben Guckian, Paul Honeyman, Alan Beirne, Jack Foley, Brian Keaney, Con Doyle  to name but a few - some of them are already guaranteed starters with Andy Moran's senior team and others are among the brightest talents the county has produced over the past 20 years but it was the attitude both teams approached the game with that made all  the difference.

THE LAST POINT: TESTING THE HEARTS OF LEITRIM FANS

There were errors, terrible misses and mistakes but there were plenty of cracking scores, wonderful moves and all out attacking football as both teams went for front foot football. Both teams deployed sweepers and played defensive tactics as all teams now do in the modern game but whether it was the quality of the players on show or the exuberance of the players, the lucky spectators were treated to an absolute classic.

Unfortunately those days are few and far between for the big ball fans - the immense commitment of players and the increasing sophistication of team's tactical and physical preparations means that we are in an era where Gaelic football has never been played to a higher standard yet people are more unhappy than they ever were.

Long periods of lateral possession football, a safety first approach has seen, in the words of Joe Brolly, the inter-county game devolve into 60 minutes of monotonous probing and lateral football with ten minutes of helter skelter action at the end - sounds familiar doesn't it?

Yet scoring returns have never been higher - when Leitrim lifted the Nestor Cup in 1994, scoring 13 points a game gave you a great chance of winning any game. Now, 13 points would see you battered out the ground as despite all the possession based football we are witnessing, scoring returns have gone through the roof.

So what exactly do we want? Dublin six-in-a-row team are quite rightly lauded for their attacking football but they weren't adverse to possession football, particularly after Donegal's famous ambush in 2014 - a result that spawned thousands of imitators and leaves us with the game we have today.

Dublin, at that time, were gung-ho gunslingers, football played at 110 miles an hour but the trauma of that defeat forced a rethink in the Dubs' approach. Diarmuid Connolly & Paul Flynn used to bombard the opposition with 50 yard bombs but now Con O'Callaghan & Co rarely shoot from beyond 25 or 30 yards - and they're not alone in that approach.

THE LAST POINT: BORING CONSISTENCY THE KEY TO PROGRESS

What makes this interesting is that Jim Gavin, who oversaw Dublin's gradual switch from the equivalent of  Brazil's samba boys to Italian pragmatism, is the man tasked with restoring gaelic football to it's all  glory and that is needed because what happens at inter-county trickles down to the club game, even juvenile games.

We Dubs think Gavin walks on water, and with good reason, but his Football Review Committee is packed with some of the greatest minds in modern gaelic football - Colm Collins of Clare & Malachy O'Rourke of Fermanagh & Monaghan comes from a very different worlds to Kerry's Eamonn Fitzmaurice and Mayo's James Horan while anyone who witnessed Michael Murphy in all his glory for Donegal and his punditry on GAAGO know full well what he offers.

The FRC is in the midst of what they call 'sandbox games' right now - Leitrim keeper Nevin O'Donnell took part in one or two and raved about what he experienced while Offaly's Nigel Dunne couldn't believe how much he enjoyed the experimental rules. But we won't know for sure how the game will develop until the mind of somebody like a Jim McGuinness or a Mickey Harte comes up with ways to negate these proposed new rules but they are worth a shot.

Looking over what is proposed, not sure if I’d be a fan of one on one throw-ins and the proposed kickout rules can often be at the mercy of weather conditions. The change to the attacking mark is not just a good idea, it is an imperative because there is nothing attacking about catching a ten metre pass unmarked out on the wing and getting a free shot!

Allowing players to play on from a mark with the proviso that they can come back for a free if they don’t score is sensible and extending advantage is another no-brainer. Don’t know how restricting passes to keepers is going to work but in the present climate, that’s a popular one.

Keeping three players, including the keeper, inside their own 65 metre line is going to be a tricky one, adding more stress on officials. It will probably be fine at inter-county level  but in club games with one referee and sidelines manned by club officials, that’s going to be a tough one to implement and adds to a growing list of demands on officials.

Two points for a long range score and four points for a goal are proposals I like but I wonder if the goal change would lead to teams defending even deeper around their goal, the law of unintended consequences coming into play there. But I'd be an enormous supporter of the proposals to move any free forward by between 30 and 50 metres for dissent, the same for  impeding a player after playing on from a mark or a free - that would cut out a lot of cynical play and I’d welcome a black card for deliberating holding a player but not grounding them.

THE LAST POINT: ROMAN WONDERS A REAL INSPIRATION

Most of all, and I know this goes against the grain of attacking football, I'd love to see defenders regain their status as footballers. When we talk about restoring one-on-one contests, the focus is almost always on the attacker but in my years with the Observer, some of the greatest players to wear the Green & Gold have been defenders going toe to toe with some legendary forwards.

Today's game has reduced defenders to mere cogs in a massed defensive system. No longer do we get to marvel at someone like Seamus Quinn against the Dubs in 1994 or Seamus Moynihan for Kerry, Henry Downey of Derry, Meath's Robbie O'Malley or any of the defenders who used to shape games in their one-on-one battles. Restore those battles and you'll have gone a long way to saving Gaelic football.