Dubs star sceptical over rule changes
JONNY COOPER, a five-time All-Ireland winner with Dublin, has revealed he isn’t in favour of any of the GAA’s experimental rules which will come under a focus from tomorrow.
The O’Byrne Cup tie between Louth and Wexford at 5pm in Darver will be the first of a potential 162 games that will be played under five new playing rules.
Cooper said he will have to experience the tweaks for himself before he can make a definitive judgement call on them but admitted that, as things stand, he has a number of concerns.
His most obvious one is that playing under one set of rules in the National League before reverting to the traditional rules for the Championship might affect Dublin’s bid for a historic five All-Ireland titles in a row.
The 29-year-old said that if it was his call he wouldn’t change any of the rules and he claimed that the game is fine as it is.
Asked if he favoured any sort of change at all, Cooper responded: ‘Personally, no. I don’t think so. Was I in favour of any of them? No, probably not. But I guess we’ve been successful the last couple of years so why would I want something changed?’
The Na Fianna man fears that experimenting with five new rules at the same time could be too much for players and officials to get their heads around. ‘It does seem like five launched in one go will be hard to get your head around, certainly initially,’ he said. ‘I think it’s a dangerous thing to try to manipulate rules to make the viewing of the game better.
‘At the moment it’s just kind of a “there’s five rules, off you go and figure it out” type thing. But at the end of the day, we’re going to spend 14 or 15 weeks doing something and then they won’t be there in the summer.
‘So, I don’t know, until I see it and play it, it’s hard to get a full feel. But they do look tough enough to grasp, certainly on paper.’
Cooper was dismissed early in the 2016 AllIreland final replay win over Mayo after receiving a black card. Under the new experimental rules, he’d merely serve 10 minutes in the sin-bin and could then return. He acknowledged he got his ‘just rewards’ for the offence that day and would prefer if the black card was simply applied correctly.
‘The example of me (in 2016), that was done right and correct and that’s what you get for an offence,’ said Cooper. ‘I just think implementing the rule would be a fine solution other than trying to put something else on top of it.’
Cooper also responded to the comments of Dublin GAA secretary John Costello who used his annual report to criticise those who apparently labelled the Dublin footballers ‘robots’ and ‘automatons’.
‘People see us over a 60 or 70-minute period in a game and they kind of see that as the rest of the picture for us, which isn’t the case,’ said Cooper.
Costello noted that criticism of Dublin for being ‘too showy’ in the 2000s has now gone to the opposite extreme with claims that they lack personality.
Cooper said the reality is that Dublin teams have become more reserved over the last decade or so.
‘I think, subtly, with this management group, but also with Pat Gilroy, that happened,’ he said.
‘It’s just been, year after year, getting more down to earth, I suppose; going about your business, no airs or graces.’ Dublin players Jonny Cooper, Jake Malone, Lauren Magee and Ali Twomey were at the National Sports Campus to launch AIG’s SmartLane driving app.