New rules off to good start

FOR all the sturm und drang about the handpass rule, the other four experimental rules went kind of under the radar in the last couple of months.

There was a bit of talk about the offensive mark fair enough and a bit about the sin-bin, but nothing like the level of interest and controversy attached to those changes as did to the restriction of the hand-pass.

That’s the one managers focussed their attention and ire upon. They dictated and dominated the agenda with their constant griping and in the end they got their way.

The rule was ditched and with it came a feeling that football would carry on much as it had before.

To a large extent that’s true. Anybody who was in Fitzgerald Stadium for the first half of the Kingdom’s game with Tyrone would have felt a deadening familiarity. For all those people who spent the winter months telling us football should be allowed evolve on its own, it stood as an indictment (and, yes, conditions did play a part admittedly).

Still there were encouraging signs that positive change is possible. From what we saw in Killarney on Sunday the new kick-out rule is a step in the right direction. It should go a long way towards encouraging more contests at kick-out time.

It takes the keeper that little bit longer to set-up, giving the opposition time to organise themselves and press the kick-out – if that’s what they want to do – and it gives them less ground to cover (the ball must go forward by thirteen metres beyond the twenty metre line and outside the D).

Keepers will be forced to go longer more often under this rule than they would have done in previous seasons and, for all that it’s interesting to see just how efficient teams can be at retaining their restarts, it’s those mano-a-mano contests for possession that people really want to see. Darragh Ó Sé versus Nicholas Murphy, that sort of thing. The gladiatorial stuff. The stuff that made football what it was.

The change is relatively modest and, yet, it could have a reasonably significant effect on the game of football as a spectacle. It’s also a perfect retort to those who advocate leaving the rules as they are.

Of course, that’s not to say that every rule trialled will work. After last weekend we’re sceptical of the new sideline rule. It seems to us that it punishes the team who’ve just gained possession and the benefit of forcing a team to kick forward seems limited (especially when they might be obliged to kick into traffic).

Again there’s no harm in testing something and seeing if it works or if it doesn’t work. Given more time and more evidence we may well reverse our initial impressions of both rules, but at least these rules are getting that chance, unlike the hand-pass restriction.

Of the other two rules we’ve haven’t seen nearly enough yet to make any sort of definitive judgement or any judgement at all truth be told. We only saw a single offensive mark (quite a way out from goal) and no player was sent to the sin-bin.

On paper they seem fine – the introduction of a sin-bin is long overdue – but let’s not prejudge these things before we get a proper look at them. We’ve got six more rounds (not including the league finals) upon which to draw more informed impressions, but as starts go it wasn’t at all bad.

It’s interesting that probably the most modest proposal of the lot – the tweak to the kick-out – could end up being the most effective and significant of the five initially proposed.

For all the brickbats the standing committee on playing rules have taken in recent months, to get just one rule through successfully would a monumental achievement in itself.