Pass without tweaks
sloppy in the second half and we got caught on a couple of occasions taking the extra handpass when it wasn’t really necessary, but by and large I think the players coped well with the new rules,’ he continued.
‘We have been trying to adapted to it in training, but it is different when you come into competition and someone is putting pressure on you.
‘It doesn’t matter whether yyou agree with themhem or not, you have too abide by the rules.. We bring them into nto every training ng session, but t when the e squeeze is on and you are feeling a little bit tired d at the end of 60 or mistakes 70 minutes, inkes start to happen. pen.
‘I don’t likee the idea of the mark inside the 45. Tonight was different because of the conditions, but on a dry day it can potentially become like a game of Aussie Rules.
‘I can live with the three handpass rule. It will be difficult close to goals where there is a crowded defence, you can beat that with two or three short hand passes, but then all of a sudden you are in trouble because there are so manyy pplayers back there. In a waway it almost encouragencourages more defenddefenders back therethere.
‘IIf I was to twetweak the hahandpass rulrule I would resrestrict it to bebetween the two 45s because caubecause as you get closer to goal wwith all the bodies ththere it will lead to a lotlo of rucks and a lot of scrums, you saw a lot of that out there tonight.
‘Everybody is trying to count the hand passes in their heads. I could hear the Laois lads counting them on the sideline, but I’d prefer to let the players count them.
‘With the mark you could have a situation where someone like Rory Beggan takes a kickout from the 20 metre line and it is caught in midfield, you have to step off. Then he kicks it to someone like Michael Murphy up the far end of the field and he catches it and you have to step off him again so he can kick it over the bar, it’s almost like a game of tennis.
‘I’m sure that’s not what is going to happen all the time, but the emphasis is to ensure the opposition don’t catch a ball inside the 45-metre line, so what do you do, you have more defenders, so in a way it defeats the purpose of what it is being brought in for.’