Football better served by evolution than revolution
HE ELEVATED a generation to sporting immortality, but all that got Jim Gavin was a more daunting job. Jarlath Burns was in no danger of under-selling the man he has asked to chair his Football Review Group.
‘I’ve been having meetings with him now since October. I have to be honest; I have never met somebody as impressive as he is,’ he said.
It is the first major step taken by the new GAA president, and Gavin’s appointment brings instant credibility.
So does the make-up of the group, which includes Éamonn Fitzmaurice, Malachy O’Rourke, Colm Collins and James Horan.
Trusting managers, some of whom were responsible for shaping the modern game, to audit football and suggest improvements is a more advisable approach than shapeless complaints about lateral passing and low-risk tactics.
Football isn’t perfect, but there is no figure, not even one as impressive and decorated as Gavin, who can guarantee an endlessly entertaining spectacle.
That’s not how sport works. Some games are doomed as competitive attractions from the start, because one team is much better. It’s this, rather than how the match is played, that will make most of the provincial championship matches barely bearable tests of endurance.
There are issues to address in the sport, but the standard of football in the National League over the first five rounds did not expose a code in crisis.
Dublin, Derry, Donegal and Armagh have all produced some terrific flourishes, with Mayo, Kerry and even Monaghan, bottom of Division 1, mustering impressive displays, too.
This is not an extensive sample size, but then neither were the handful of awful club finals that were televised last winter and kindled a panic about the future of the game, which was useful in the intercounty off-season, when news can be sparse.
It would be a surprise if Gavin’s group return with interventionist proposals. Nothing he ever said as Dublin manager revealed a belief that football needed saving.
Fitzmaurice, Horan and O’Rourke were content to operate at the elite end of the game, too, and were obviously not repulsed by what they saw, or indeed coached.
There is, in fact, a strong current of feeling among coaches that football, like other sports, goes through cycles, where new ideas are copied, countered and eventually built on or bypassed by another approach.
The uniform approach to defending now, where teams shuttle players back to fill space and frustrate the opposition forward line, is in large part a reflection of how good modern players are, how accurately forwards can shoot – and why the ongoing failure to define a workable tackle means managers and coaches are terrified of leaving defenders one on one.
There is a deluded belief that the game needs to get back to man-on-man exchanges, but that’s not feasible when the only way of stopping a good forward is by fouling them.
Gavin Devlin, Mickey Harte’s long-standing assistant, spoke last summer before Louth played Kerry on this topic.
‘The onus on you as a coach is not to put your defender in that situation,’ he said.
The only way individual contests could feasibly work is with a tackle so black and white that it is instantly clear, to officials and everyone else, whether a foul has been committed.
Perhaps Gavin’s Football Review Group will recommend one, but that looks unlikely.
An Aussie Rules tackle would change the game so completely that it would lose much of its meaning.
Given the individuals working with Gavin, it is to be hoped that trust is placed in coaches to evolve the game further, too.
Devlin could have an interesting role in that, too. Mickey Harte is not much loved by many in the football community for many reasons, most of them unfair and because he is unswerving in his beliefs.
His impact at Derry has been terrific, and last week’s heavy defeat to Dublin should be seen in light of the selection and the need to rotate.
This morning, Derry are best placed to disrupt football’s big two deciding the destination of the Sam Maguire between them.
Neither Dublin nor Kerry will want to see them in Croke Park this summer.
They’ll be there, unapologetic agents of change.