Mark is part of the problem in game... over to you, Jarlath
WITH Rory Beggan and company away chasing their NFL dream, Tyrone’s Niall Morgan certainly did his best last weekend to keep the goalkeepers union on the back pages.
There was the shot of him plucking a certain point down from above the crossbar in Sunday’s Division 1 league game against Galway, the freeze frame so striking, it was as if he had used a trampoline in the goalmouth to reach that height.
There was the disguised chip pass for a point in the second half. Not to mention the casual orchestrating of numerous attacking plays, with the nonchalance of a player standing on his own goalmouth rather than on the opposition’s 45 metre line.
This, as if he was blissfully ignorant of the high-wire act that has already seen other goalkeepers fall into the abyss of a viral clip that has them backpedalling furiously as the ball is kicked into an empty net — Daire Ó Baoill’s floated lob for Donegal against Fermanagh just one doing the rounds of late.
Into the second minute of four allotted minutes of added time at Healy Park in Omagh then and Galway are clinging to a 1-10 to 011 lead. Tyrone turn over the ball near the sideline, just 30 metres from their own goal. Out races Morgan to immediately get involved. Such is the threat he poses that Galway recognise as much and cynically bring him to ground. Up he bounces and races on to follow the move down the other end. Tick, tick, tick. A collection of Tyrone forwards gain possession in and around the scoring zone but don’t want to risk the miss and so keep recycling. Morgan can see the full picture of the packed zone in front of him so cleverly just waits just outside the 45 metre line to collect the pass. Makes sure not to cross over it as he clips the simplest of 25 yard passes to Conn Kilpatrick, who had made a dart out near the top of the Galway ‘D’ and catches it at face height. Immediately raises his left arm to signal an advanced mark, forcing the nearest Galway defender to retreat 13 metres. He easily slots the easy point chance to leave just one in it.
The footage of that clip alone became its own talking point. How the advanced mark — for all the virtue of it being introduced to encourage kicking and get around mass defences — is not really a skill. Certainly not one that deserves a free pot at the posts.
This single play is so far removed from the idea of encouraging long kicking or high fielding, it only emphasises so much that is wrong with the rule. Never mind stopping the flow of a game, being counter-intuitive in terms of the best type of attacking play where a forward turns and takes his opponent on. Or the best type of defensive play where a back shadows the player or holds him up and forces a turnover or dispossession.
Now it was pointed out that Galway were punished for sitting too deep. That they could have pressed up closer to the 45 metre line to make it more difficult.
But all the moving parts in an inter-county attacking unit means that a player is always going to be able to find a little pocket of space.
The rule has quickly become a mockery of how it was originally intended — this column warned from the get-go how that would always happen as teams and players like Morgan became street smart in their use of it.
But this actually wasn’t nearly the most damning of plays last Sunday that featured a rule that was brought in under the Standing Committee on Playing Rules — chaired by David Hassan — back in 2020.
Ten minutes earlier, there was a passage of play that captured everything that is wrong with the rule. The difficulty for players — as much as officials — is often to gauge whether the ball has actually travelled the required 20 metres. And if so, if it was kicked from outside the 45 metre line to inside.
In another version of what was to come, Morgan is again floating just outside the 45 metre line. This time it’s Kieran McGeary who handpasses it to Conn Kilpatrick, who steps forward to curl that same simple 25 yard pass to Niall Devlin. Cue the farce of the player raising his right arm and stopping dead. Staring over at the referee for a whistle as he is tackled — while standing stock still. He raises his arm a second time, clearly thinking maybe the referee missed his first signal.
No joy. As he is standing there, two Galway players strip him of the ball and turn it over.
Turns out referee Joe McQuillan was eagle-eyed enough to spot Kilpatrick had just stepped over the 45 metre line when he kicked the ball. So he was right not to whistle a mark.
That it’s 2024 and this is the level of confusion in a Division 1 league game where relegation or final status could hinge on such calls is an indictment of what was always a bad rule. A hard rule for referees to get right, as much as players. This isn’t Gaelic football. Not as we used to know it. Over then to incoming GAA president Jarlath Burns, who will officially take charge at Congress tomorrow. As previous chairman of the Standing Committee on Playing Rules, he championed the introduction of the mark from the kick-out and steered it through Congress. Now that rule change has been warmly embraced and widely judged a success, doing what it set out to do and putting a renewed emphasis on long kicking and high fielding, core elements of the game.
Significantly, that same committee looked at the option of the advanced mark/defensive mark — and didn’t go there.
There was no appetite for it from players, managers or the main stakeholders and it has been widely panned since.
Burns is now in the position where he can again do something to influence the evolution of Gaelic football. Its removal should be top of the list of any committee looking at playing rules or how to make Gaelic football more attractive as a spectacle after much of the dull, lateral, possession-based dross that pockmarked last year’s Championship — at club and county level.
It’s the wrong answer to the right question.
The discussion around how to make the game more appealing when teams decide to pile bodies back and prompt the opposition to play keep ball isn’t going to go away. Inter-county coach and tutor Colm Nally suggested one alternative when I spoke to him before Christmas — amend the rule so that the ball has to travel from outside the 65 metre line to inside the 45 so that at least the ball has to be kicked a decent distance.
There has been plenty of entertainment already in this year’s league, epitomised by that thrilling opening-round fixture between Dublin and Monaghan at Croke Park and the game retains its capacity to pack in the crowds.
Con O’Callaghan was back in rampaging form against Roscommon last weekend — it was slightly dispiriting though to see such an explosive player reduced to standing still on taking possession of the ball and raising his arm to signal a mark from close range just before full-time.
Kerry-Mayo produced such an uplifting finish by virtue of David Clifford taking the ball at full throttle to beat his marker and kick the winning score.
Imagine that same play where the Footballer of the Year raises his arm and the play comes to a halt.
As it stands, the mark isn’t the answer; it’s part of the problem.
Over to you, mister president.
A hard rule for referees to get right, as much as players