Football may suffer if new solutions are too radical..
PAT CRITCHLEY doesn’t believe that a new football committee headed up by Jim Gavin needs to get “too radical” with the game.
New GAA president Jarlath Burns (inset) has appointed former Dublin boss Gavin to chair a review group which will also include Colm Collins, Malachy O’rourke, Eamonn Fitzmaurice, Colm Nally and James Horan, with possible rule changes to be proposed later in the year in a bid to improve the game as a spectacle.
Gavin borrowed from basketball coaching during his time with Dublin and may look to that sport, which Critchley has extensive experience of, in this instance too.
Although better known for hurling, Critchley played and coached football to a high standard too, leading IT Carlow to a historic Sigerson Cup final appearance in 2020.
He said: “I’ve seen the use of the shot clock in basketball.
“When I started out, the shot clock in basketball was 30 seconds.
“It was felt the game was too slow so they moved it to 24 seconds.
“You’d eight seconds to cross the half-way line.
“Plus you can’t backcourt the basketball.
“Basketball is only 10 players in a much smaller playing size. And there’s a lot of refereeing and officiating to it.
“I think the referees have too much to do as it is in Gaelic football.
“We have seven officials but I don’t think we make proper use of them.
“In basketball, you’ve two referees for 10 players. Three now at international level.
“In the modern age now with technology and scoreboard, score and time should be done on the sideline.
“I’ve seen in ladies Gaelic football, the countdown clock is excellent. It works for ladies football.
“Maybe the pick-up would quicken the game as well.
“At the same time you don’t want to be too radical.
“It’s probably turning as it is now anyway.”
A FEW years back, Laochra Gael profiles were doubled to an hour in length, but there are so many strands to Pat Critchley that it scarcely does him justice.
It’s probably as a hurler that he’s best known, though he is a high achiever in so many other fields.
He became Laois’s first All Star in 1985 and remains their only recipient in hurling. He played football to a high level, winning an All-ireland club title with Portlaoise in 1983.
He was also an accomplished basketball player and has coached all of those sports at Scoil Chriost Ri in Portlaoise, where he was a PE teacher, and further afield, with considerable success.
He also made a name for himself as a musician, playing the accordion in The Mere Mortals, a popular Irish band back in the 1980s and ‘90s who were on the bill for Feile in 1990, the very first ‘Trip to Tipp’.
“We had backstage passes for the whole week,” Critchley recalls. “It was a fabulous weekend.
“We played around 12 o’clock on Saturday morning but around that time The Saw Doctors were playing. Ah, there was a great buzz.
“We weren’t playing in ‘91 but we were back there – Shane Macgowan (inset) was headlining with The Pogues one of the nights.
“I lost most of my teeth against Tipperary in ‘84 in the Centenary Cup quarter-final.
“When we were backstage in the tent, myself and Paul Marron, the lead singer, we were drinking two cans of
Heineken while
Shane was tucking into the vodka over in the corner.
“Paul Marron says, ‘Jaysus, there’s Mcgowan over in the corner there and not a tooth in his head and he never f**king played hurling!’”
With Critchley and Des Rigney, who played hurling and rugby, always prioritising sport, the six-piece didn’t quite take off as it might have.
“We’d tell the lads to power on without us because music was number one for the other four lads but it wasn’t for us. But they never did that, and the six of us always just got on so well together and stuck together throughout until it ran its course.”
But when his Laochra Gael was shot late last year the band was interviewed together, causing their creative juices to flow once again.
“The lads have done a few practices out in Ollie Plunkett’s Golden Egg studios. They might do a few records or a few gigs.”