THE LAST POINT: Rules chaos threatens control

Chaos or control is the choice we face! Or maybe it is control and chaos? Either way, I'm not about to start off some metaphysical debate about the nature of chaos and gaelic football's new playing enhancements nor wax lyrically about the need for order and structure as a foundation for a team to achieve their dreams.

Truth be told, I feel it is way too early to make any definitive judgment on what Jim Gavin's Football Review Committee have devised. It was way too early to jump to conclusions as did Aidan O'Shea when he sounded the death knell of the four point goal after the very first game of the Railway Cup series last October but that didn't stop the knee jerk reaction and the four point goal was consigned to the dust-bin of history.

The thing is, goals should mean more. They are the dramatic exclamation points in a game yet now we've reached the situation where David Clifford can hit an otherworldly hat-trick against Tyrone but the damage to the Oak Leaf county was just a solitary point as they landed four two-pointers and that's not right.

For the record, I love the two pointer - it has revived the art of long range point scoring, an art that had died out in the era of risk averse play. Few remember the litany of close range, clinical points that had become de-rigeur in the Gaelic football world but mention Ciaran McDonald, Diarmuid Connolly or Maurice Fitzgerald and the images of their famous monster scores from distance instantly spring to mind.

Our own Seamus Quinn scored a few haymakers in his time with Leitrim, the Connacht Semi Final win over Roscommon in 2000 providing one of the best examples of a score that should have been worth two points as he rose off his knees to score from 50 yards! 

THE LAST POINT: A GLIMPSE TOWARDS A BRIGHTER FUTURE

Safe to say I'm a fan of rewarding the bravery of the long range shot but taking the four point goal off the table has skewed the equation. The idea was the threat of the two pointer would draw out defenders, creating more space for goals but instead, teams are patrolling the 45 metre line in the manner that Leitrim flooded back against Offaly last Sunday in Ballinamore, an entirely understandable approach that mostly paid dividends. 

But if we want players to take risks, you've got to reward it and venturing closer to goal in search of a goal is now the most difficult aspect of gaelic football and when four two pointers can almost wipe out three goals, the reward of going for goal is just not there.

I'm probably out of kilter with much of the debate on this as I find myself in full agreement with the 50 metre penalties for dissent and handing the ball back to an opponent. Those tasked with reviving the game were all at the coalface of the inter county game and slowing the opposition by blocking a free kick, rolling the ball away or holding onto the ball were tactics adopted by virtually every team that took to the playing field.

That's all gone now - the punishment is now far too great but if we roll that back, just wait and you'll see the deliberate stalling tactics come back into vogue as managers seek to control the chaos inherent in the new game - see I eventually got to the point!

Declan Bogue wrote a great column on the subject on The42.ie on Monday evening, helpfully entitled “Gaelic Football is a game worth saving from itself and control freaks” and he makes the point much better than I. That  chaos and control was on full view last Sunday in Pairc Sheain Ui Eslin as Leitrim turned in easily their best display of the campaign in a 1-13 to 1-9 loss to Offaly.

Leitrim exploited chaos to land a wonderful goal from the mercurial Darren Cox, a  goal that got everyone up off their seats. The chaos, touched on by Steven Poacher after the game, also had a negative effect as a young Leitrim team attempted to ride the wave of excitement washing over the pitch from the stand but that excitement led to misplaced passes and poor execution - and that means control.

It is that battle between control and chaos that has Kieran McGeeney, Jim McGuinness, Robbie Brennan and more than a few  managers in a tizzy. The new game is more about chaos  than control but control is what a manager craves  - the solo and go has been a breadth of free air but it renders control almost  obsolete as the punishment for dissent or not handing the ball over is now virtually a certain score. 

We have a more dynamic game  and anybody complaining about that need only cast their mind back to the borefest that was the  concluding stages of last year's All-Ireland series. Of course, there is some confusion and how the new rules are interpreted but  there was just as much confusion with the old rules. The difference, a big one to be fair, is that we were pretty familiar and resigned to  that confusion - what we're dealing with now is jolting us out of our comfort zones but it had to be done.

If I can pick an analogy, look at the false start rule in athletics. For over a 100 years, every sprinter had a false start to give in a race. Under pressure from TV companies  who were seeing their schedule shot to bits by athletes indulging in tactical false starts, the rules were changed to a draconian one false start and you are gone!

That one change transformed the sport but  even now, 14 years after it was introduced, someone bemoans its introduction, harking back to the good old days. Yet the most high profile victim of the rule, a certain Usain Bolt who lost his title  to a false start at the  2011 World Championships, had no problems with his DQ - after all he went too early and paid the price.

Paying the price is tough and I'm sure I'll  be raging when a team falls victim to a harsh 50 metre penalty at some stage but for the long term health of the game, as a spectacle for fans and for the enjoyment of players who devote so much time to what is essentially a pastime, making a game more entertaining is a no brainer but for some in the GAA world, it is tantamount of heresy!

Every major team sport, be it soccer, rugby, basketball, NFL, Aussie Rules, has adopted tweaks designed to make the game more entertaining over the years, changes that were often derided but that proved beneficial in the long term. The same will occur with the new   enhancements - not allowing soccer keepers to pick up the ball after a pass back was pretty radical but after Italia 90, it was a change that made enormous sense.

Are the new enhancements all to my taste?  I find myself vacillating wildly over the 12 v 11 and the impact of a roaming goalkeeper; the hooter leaves me a little cold although a clock timer at every game would be a welcome addition. And the 3-up rule has got to be amended so that a team who loses a player to a black card doesn't actually end up with an advantage thanks to their own indiscipline. 

But I've got to say that the sea-change in discipline, most particularly the dissent to  officials, is an absolute essential going forward. The one inescapable truth is that if you want a free-flowing exciting contest, you've got to minimise or eliminate tactics that slow the game, the cynicism we're all against but that we're secretly delighted with when our team indulges in  it and aghast when the opposition does the very same. 

The harsh truth is that the solo-and-go won't succeed unless the penalties for attempting to stall the solo-and-go are so severe that it makes dissent and tactical fouling  unthinkable for any team.

I've no problems with managers dissecting and criticising the new rules but, if we're being honest, it is the  ingenuity of  coaches that brought us to the game we endured in 2024. Jim Gavin's Dublin started off as the Harlem Globetrotters in 2013 but Jim McGuinness' tactical revolution in 2014 led to a response that got us to where we are today.

THE LAST POINT: ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK

Coaches, inventive as they are, will find a way to exploit the new rules - already we've seen players sprinting at speed to take the ball off an opponent who must hand over the ball following a foul. That's good coaching, instantly opening up a gap and a way to exploit the new reality but we know that it is easier to destroy than construct but I think we have a responsibility to reward the positive.

For years, Gaelic football has lived by the phrase “offences win games, defences win championships”, so much so that Galway & Armagh, two counties I've always associated with free flowing stylish football , served up a dire All-Ireland last year. Both have shown  they can prosper in the new game but old habits die hard.

That's the real battle the GAA face - players adapted to frees from the hand and they'll adapt to the enhancements once they embrace them. Then, perhaps, we  will see a recalibration of how we view chaos and control in Gaelic football.