We Cav to think hard about this

THE new experimental football rules could lead to Colm Cavanagh being rebranded as a full-forward – but the Tyrone star reckons they’re too much at once.

Cavanagh plays as a defensive midfielder for the county but was sent up top in the closing stages of the All-ireland final defeat to Dublin.

He caused some panic too, winning a penalty that was converted by Peter Harte as the champions were made to sweat just a little before securing the four-ina-row.

With the advanced mark due to be trialled in the pre-season competitions and the League, a bigger premium will be placed on high fielders like Cavanagh playing on the edge of the square.

“We joke about this with the new rule and the mark inside,” he said.

“I’ll put it out there that I don’t think all these rules need to be completely implemented.

“It’d be very, very harsh on referees, it’d be very, very harsh on the game to implement everything in one go.

“As a forward – I’m not a forward – I like the idea. I like the idea of a mark.

“You’re rewarding them for winning a good ball.”

He added: “It sort of brings it closer to the Afl-type rules, and I don’t know if you really want to go down that road.

“But if that rule did come in, that one especially, you could see a shift in personnel and who’s going to be up front.

“You’d look at our inside line of Mark Bradley, Conor Mcaliskey and those lads aren’t big fellas like.

“You may want to put bigger men in and encourage kicking the ball.

“I think it would because you’re rewarded for being a ball-winner in there, an out and out ball-winner.”