THE LAST POINT: Proposed new rules but the same old furore

Silly season in the GAA world moves even earlier in the year if we’re to judge from some of the pieces we’ve read in the national media over the past few days. It used to be the preserve of the end of year and Convention time but, now that the GAA’s split season is leaving quite a few journos at a loss, the past weekend was filled with talk of new adjustments to gaelic football’s old ‘new rules’ and even a few off-kilter suggestions from former Dublin boss Pat Gilroy.​

​Kevin McStay battled Jim Gavin teams quite a bit during his time with Roscommon but the former Mayo manager has the unenviable task of leading a committee, the cruelly named ‘Expert Advisory Group’, that must follow-up and expand on the work the former Dublin boss and his cohorts did with the Football Review Committee – even the names of both bodies give off a different vibe, Gavin’s group reviewing what was going on and coming up with suggestions while McStay’s group is tagged as an expert advisory group, immediately raising the hackles of the Gaelic football community.

That’s because we all have opinions on what might work and what mightn’t, we all have our bugbears, dislikes and ideas of what make the perfect game of Gaelic football and no matter what the evidence might suggest, our opinions aren’t that easily shifted, particularly when the ‘experts’ tell us what we think might be wrong!

I’ve dealt with McStay a few times in this job and found him to be thoughtful and insightful about the game – no more than myself, he isn’t always right but the former Roscommon boss is a keen student of the game and I’ve always enjoyed his analysis of the game on RTE or The Irish TImes or The Herald over the years, even when I don’t agree with his take. You sense, no more than Jim Gavin, that McStay is a man who thinks deeply about the game and you know, that’s no bad thing.

Quite a few people opposed, and still oppose, Jim Gavin’s rule enhancements and that’s fine too but Gavin was smart enough to get the GAA to accept that his Football Review Committee mightn’t get it all right and that some things will need adjustments. The FRC operated quite tactically, deciding to offer a limited menu of enhancements rather than a full-blown re-imaging of the game, but they were aware that there could be some unintended consequences.

Take the two-point arc – it has been a revelation in the game but, unintended consequence alert, teams are not going for goals quite as much as they used to and the spectacle is lesser for it. Nothing beats the explosion of noise and celebration when the ball hits the net but, right now, under current rules, two quick long range kicks negate what was once the seismic impact of a goal and that’s not right. If the intention was to make the game more entertaining for players and spectators, goals remain the exclamation point in gaelic football.

Gavin’s committee originally proposed four points for a goal and the logic is unassailable – teams previously defended in mass to prevent goals, the two point arc was designed to draw them out and allow more room for creative forwards to thrive but instead, the two pointer is now the favoured weapon, Mayo, Cork and Louth in particular exploiting the arc to devastating effect this year.

The reason the four point goal was dropped was the stunned reaction to Connacht running through Leinster for four goals in the rules trial games. Folk suddenly got scared about what a couple of goals might do to a game, more pearl clutching about what it might do if the ‘minnows’ came up against the big boys, but instead of taking the longer view, knee-jerk reactions saw the proposal put on the back burner before a truly competitive game was played.

Two years later, the two-pointer is now the way of life and probably distorting games – over the weekend, Fintan Fitzpatrick, Darren Cox and Damian Moran all had a couple, or more, two pointers and as brilliant and inspiring as they are, they don’t quite get the pulse racing the same way that goals from Alan Glancy, Con Doyle and Thomas Gunn did.

One of the new proposals McStay’s group has come up is that kick-outs only need to travel 13 metres rather than beyond the 40 metre arc. On the face of it, that goes against one of the most successful new enhancements, the chaos that now exists in the middle of the field has meant teams cannot control possession so easily. But I’m just wondering, and I have no hard evidence to back this up, if the Expert Advisory Group are receiving feedback about a significant increase in serious injury caused by the vastly increased number of collisions?

The limit on handpassing to three consecutive passes before a kick is probably the most welcomed and least popular proposal at one and the same time. Handpassing gives managers and coaches control over a game, kicking introduces an element of mayhem into that control so you can see why many are up in arms about that proposal. Honestly, there is far too much handpassing for the sake of it but, again playing devils’ advocate, imagine a game in Pairc Sean next February and the wind howling towards the scoreboard end – how does a team advance the ball without the dreaded handpassing?

Kicking skills have clearly declined over the years, there is no doubt about that but, watching games at Junior and Intermediate level over the weekend, there is far more kicking, not all of it accurate, and it does make the game far more entertaining and unpredictable. Is the club game at Senior level a much higher standard with a more precise execution of the game’s skills? You bet it is but watching Kiltubrid edge past Aughnasheelin and Annaduff draw with Bornacoola, it is hard to beat the kicking game for old fashioned chaos and excitement.

I get people are getting fed up with constant change, but inaction over the years reduced the game to utter dross and boredom and nobody can argue that the changes over the past two years have not revitalised the game. Fear of change is not a good enough reason to stop innovation - just give the new proposals a chance, we can always change our minds but we’ve seen gaelic football reborn over the last two years, so what have we got to fear!