New rules won’t cure football’s ills, but doing nothing is not an option

KILMACUD CROKES versus Portlaoise played out like an open letter to the committee who dared to propose a radical facelift in order to address the worry lines on the brow of Gaelic football supporters the country over. From the very first ball, Sunday’s Leinster Club SFC semi-final captured so much that is good about the game — a rip-roaring, pulsating contest taking on the quality of a blockbuster movie that didn’t let up until the final frame. Dara Mullin showed the sort of 0-60 acceleration that wouldn’t have been out of place on a Formula 1 grid, as he torched his way through the heart of the Portlaoise defence before hitting the net in the opening minutes. Meanwhile, Paul Mannion was full of elusive running and clever link play in attack. Both teams kicked the ball early and often, showing a breadth of attacking ambition that included keeping key finishers up the field. Kieran Lillis captured the relentless box-tobox nature of the action. He galloped forward to see a goalbound effort blocked by David Nestor one minute, then scrambled another away to safety near his own square later on, after Graham Brody copperfastened his All-Star nominee credentials with a breathtaking reaction save. The same player continued to contribute to the attacking element of goalkeeping play when he became a 15th outfield player as Portlaoise chased down the game. This thrilling, high-octane affair produced a level of unscripted drama right through to injury-time, when Crokes’ own goalkeeper dived to his right to save a Craig Rogers penalty that would have tied up the game. So Gaelic football needs a three handpass limit, an offensive mark, and sidelines to be kicked forward? In one way, it was easy to understand how players lined up, past and present, to join the chorus of dissent over the weekend – before the experimental rules first see the light of day in the provincial councils’ early-season competitions and then the Allianz League. But TG4’s double-bill of Gaelic football coverage came with a ‘B’ side, the equivalent of a band’s out-takes, not for general sale, that only serve to highlight the value of the good stuff. The live game screened was the Connacht club final, and the contrast with what was on show at the same time in Parnell Park was stark. Ballintubber’s Kevin Johnson has built a reputation as a smart, tactically aware coach in guiding his team to a Mayo title and his playbook was a riff on the park-the-bus theme that has filtered down from the county game to the club scene. Fifteen good and true men were behind the ball when Corofin gained possession with a view to hitting the reigning champions — a team that racked up a staggering 4-22 against Clann na nGael in the semi-final — on the counter. And it largely worked, as they were 1-5 to 1-2 ahead at the interval before Ian Burke’s introduction turned the game and the spaces opened up for the Galway champions to power home. But there was no denying that long passages of a dreary, defensive first half were exactly the reason the Standing Committee on Playing Rules proposed such radical changes to Gaelic football. It sought to address the lack of individual contests for the ball, the stultifying tracts of keep-ball, the repetitive handpassing chains as players take the safe, percentage option of maintaining possession, all stemming from massed defences. If every team set up this way, it’s hard to know who would be left watching Gaelic football. Or playing it. The new rules are an attempt to act as a counter to those coaches who have basically hacked the system. In seeking to maintain the popularity of the sport and protect its core skills, the committee’s intentions are pure. The package of experimental rules need to happen — even to point up their flaws, how they are aimed more towards the symptoms than the cause. It reminds of Bono’s take on Tony Blair’s support of a US-led war on Iraq, that the British Prime Minister was ‘sincere in his convictions’, the only problem being he was ‘sincerely wrong’. Let the trial period stand or fall on its own merits. The truth will out. To do nothing is not an option.

In seeking to protect the sport’s core skills, the committee’s intentions are pure