Time is right to examine the merits of our game

THOSE who will argue that football should be left alone have been given a powerful argument after Sunday’s epic All-Ireland semi-final between Cork and Donegal. The latter have come a long way in 12 months, from being hammered by some for being a stain on the game for their ultra-defensive set-up to becoming exhibit A in the case as to why football should be left alone, a feeling that is out there especially given the sense of unease that some are feeling because of the Football Review Committee’s (FRC) canvass of opinions on the game. But one good game does not a summer make and, while it is early days, Eugene McGee and his committee are to be complimented for their expansive trawl for suggestions, and the hope is that when they finally get down to putting some proposals together, people afford them the respect that their work merits. It is hard to buy the argument that the game is just dandy as it is, given the lop-sided nature of the Championship system, a flourishing fouling culture and if not the erosion, then certainly the marginalisation of what might be termed the core skills. The FRC should be a focal point to facilitate a debate on what kind of game we want to take into the future, and it is not one that we should shrink from. In over a century — and in particular over the last decade — the only thing that has stayed still is the game, while advances in fitness, conditioning and tactics have gone to a different level. It means that the game is changing beyond recognition, which, as Mickey Harte has pointed out regularly, may not be a bad thing given that the modern game is intriguing and when it is played well, as with Donegal on Sunday, it makes for an intriguing spectacle. But there is also the suggestion that the game has now become so weighted in favour of the system that it is killing individuality, a point made succinctly by Kerry’s Darran O’Sullivan (right) recently when he suggested that the ‘best footballers are no longer the best players’. It may well be that the game has been replaced by something better — and TG4’s rerun of old games has long served as a reminder that the past was not the land of milk and honey that some would like you to think. But the important thing is that all stakeholders should engage with what the FRC are trying to do with open minds and in good faith. The game deserves that much.