Why hurling can learn from Gaelic football...

IT’S put to Paul O’Brien that hurling can’t afford to be too sniffy about rule change, given how Gaelic football has evolved organically to the point where intervention is now required – last weekend’s Mayo county final was the latest example of it being reduced to an awful, possession-led, risk-averse spectacle.

Interestingly, he says hurling still has a lot to learn from Gaelic football in a creative tactical sense. ‘One thing, I think football is far more evolved than hurling. At a really basic level, if you look at who is the best coached team in hurling, it’s Limerick - coached by a football man. That’s not disparaging Paul Kinnerk, he’s the best. But he’s a man whose foundations would have been in football. And I see some of the best tactically set-up hurling teams have a strong football influence.

‘I think hurling needs to get over itself a little bit. Because there is that little bit of snobbery around the sport, “oh we don’t need to change – we have the greatest sport in the world”. But there needs to be innovation. Rather than rule changes, if we could create forums around discussing the game.

‘No one can beat Limerick because Limerick go, “If you want to play us this way our half-back line will do all the scoring. And if you want to play us this way, oh sure half-forwards [Gearóid] Hegarty and [Tom] Morrissey, they will do the scoring. And if you want to play a third way, [Aaron] Gillane and [Seamus] Flanagan will do the scoring inside. To me, that is where we need to get to. Where it’s way more fluid and there is a lot of thinking going on.

‘Limerick are able to win all three ways because they’re not coached to a regimented system. All their coaching is fundamentally based around games and skill execution.’