football rules GAA facing three crucial calls this month

Decision time for Central Council on fixture schedules, competition structures and

THIS month’s Central Council meeting will be faced with three decisions which could have a major long-term impact on football in particular.

Games schedules, playing rules and competition structures will all be on the agenda on November 24 in what promises to be a lively session.

Roscommon are calling for a review of national and local fixtures programmes, a topic that is becoming increasingly vexatious as the club v county crux continues. The refined list of proposed football rule changes and whether to introduce a secondary championship will also be discussed at the meeting.

Roscommon want an expert group to be established immediately to examine the entire fixtures area amid growing frustration over the isolation of club players for long stretches of the year.

Under the banner ‘Fix the Fixtures’, the Club Players’ Association has been agitating for change since its formation early last year, but remain unhappy by the pace of reform.

Designating April free of intercounty activity, starting the All-Ireland football qualifiers earlier and bringing the All-Ireland finals forward by two weeks were all supposed to create more room for club activity, but judging by this year’s county final dates, they did not have the desired impact.

In line with recent years, most of the finals were played between the second and last Sundays in October. Galway hurling is still only at the semi-final stage, while their football final replay (Corofin v Mountbellew-Moylough) will be played next Sunday.

A drawn football final in Wicklow left St Patrick’s in the impossible position of having to play Rhode (Offaly) in the first round of the Leinster club championship less than 24 hours after beating Rathnew in a replay.

It’s a classic example of how messed up the fixtures programme is, although questions have to be asked about why Wicklow were so late completing their championship when they were eliminated from the All-Ireland qualifiers in the second weekend in June.

Roscommon are demanding that club and county be treated equally, rather than the latter being allowed to dominate for most of the summer.

In an interview with the Irish Independent last Saturday, Tom Ryan, the GAA’s new director-general, said that one of his main ambitions is to improve the lot of the club player.

“I have met the CPA a few times. What they espouse is what we would all like to see – a fair and predictable fixtures programme. We’re involving them in a process to bring about change but it can’t be done in one fell swoop. What they (CPA) are looking for is a valid point of view. Achieving it is the tricky part. It’s not as easy as saying we’ll throw everything out and start again,” he said.

Central Council will also decide this month which of the recently-proposed football rule changes should be trialled in next year’s Allianz League.

Five main changes were proposed by the Playing Rules Committee: limiting the handpass to three, replacing the black card with a ten-minute sin bin, insisting that all sideline kicks outside the opposition’s 13-metre line go forward, extending the mark to apply to catches made on or inside the opposition’s 20-metre line from kicks outside the ’45 and restricting to four (two from either side) the number of

‘It’s not as easy as saying we’ll throw everything out and start again’ – Tom Ryan

players who can contest kick-outs.

However, they were all for consultation purposes only and are subject to amendment, depending on the feedback the committee received. The new rules were trialled in behind-closeddoors games where their practical impact could be assessed.

“The consultative process is all that’s been happening up to now. We might see all the proposals being put forward, maybe even a few extra and some might drop off,” said Ryan.

On the secondary championship issue, Wicklow were first to table a formal proposal. They want the 16 teams in Divisions 3 and 4 to compete in their provincial championships but, once beaten, they would take no further part in the All-Ireland race.

The only exception would be where, as happened this year with Laois and Fermanagh, counties reached their provincial finals, in which case they would remain in the Sam Maguire Tier. The rest would enter a secondary competition, with the semi-finals and finals played in Croke Park as curtain-raisers to their All-Ireland equivalents.

Ryan believes a secondary competition has merit, but only if it’s given a proper profile. “The first priority would be to get the counties concerned behind it. If they see that there’s something positive in it, then it can work. It would need to be given proper prominence – it just can’t be put there in the hope that it will work .”