PUTTING THEORY INTO ACTION
Impact of new rules now cannot be denied
GAELIC football, just not as you know it.
About 100 hardy souls braved a cold winter’s evening to see Wexford take the spoils on a hard evening when the wind and rain made it tricky for players to adapt to the new experimental rules.
The 5pm throw-in lent a historical significance to what otherwise would have been a mundane O’Byrne Cup fixture at Louth’s Centre of Excellence in Darver, the early start making it the first official match under the package of headline-grabbing rules changes.
Since the GAA’s Standing Committee on Playing Rules unveiled five changes to be trialled in the pre-season competitions with a view to also being used in the Allianz Football League, there has been no shortage of opinion on how they might work.
A three-handpass limit before the ball must be kicked. Sideline kicks to go forward. An ‘advanced mark’ for a player catching the ball inside the attacking ’45, once the ball has travelled 20 metres or more from outside the ’45. A 10-minute sin-bin for a black card offence rather than the player being replaced. And the kick-out being moved up from the 13-metre line to the 20-metre line.
The intention is to make Gaelic football more of a spectacle, increase the number of contests for possession and go some way to addressing the extended periods of keep ball that go hand-in-hand with mass defences.
Last night was the first chance to see the theory in action in a competitive senior game. And the impact couldn’t be denied.
The first half in particular was like a throwback to another era, with a veritable orgy of kick-passing. As Wexford manager Paul McLoughlin pointed out afterwards, the players were clever enough to try and limit the sequence of handpassing by using the foot when they would generally use the hand for a simple short pass.
And there was a self-regulating element to it all as well, players and management roaring constantly, ‘Three!’ as a reminder.
And in the seventh minute, ‘Four!’ That was the moment when a necklace of handpasses saw Wexford corner-forward Paul Curtis played in on goal and handpass the ball into the net. The shouts from the Louth bench told the story – the score broke the three-handpass limit. And here’s the thing – the referee David O’Connor, who otherwise did a very competent job amidst the constant hectoring, missed it. The goal stood, the ball was kicked out, but with the Louth bench in the ear of the sideline official, that same official went in and had a word with O’Connor. Goal disallowed.
Here then is the perfect example of how hard it is for the referee to add handpasses to all the other things he needs to keep tabs on. He’ll need every bit of help he can get from his team of officials.
He might also need headphones to drown out the constant shouting from players and from the sideline over calls related to the new rules.
The handpass limit certainly encourages players to put boot to ball regularly.
The sideline kick having to go forward wasn’t a significant feature, one Wexford kick being turned over while Louth were penalised in the second half for a later pass.
Louth’s Ryan Burns showed exactly the advantage that the advanced mark confers on a forward. The forward made his own little bit of history by taking the first official advanced mark in the 29th minute, putting his hand up to signal it before taking the time to swing an uncontested right-foot kick over the bar.
Of the five advanced marks taken over the course of the game, he managed three of them, finding the space in the channels. Wexford’s Kevin O’Grady was the other player to slot one of those free kicks over.
The two full-backs – Dan Corcoran and Gavin Sheehan – were responsi-
ble for the two defensive marks taken from balls kicked into the forward line.
Team-mate Tommy Durnin was the only player to end up in the sin-bin for a trip in first-half injury-time and Louth’s goal actually came with just 14 men soon after the restart. Given the new rules, there was a certain irony in that it stemmed from a free kicked backwards that evaded Conor Swaine and allowed Sam Mulroy to score into an open goal.
The kick-out from the 20-metre line didn’t do a huge amount to halt the established practice of the goalkeeper racing out to go short to a defender on either wing, though Louth’s Alan McGauley prompted a regular ‘mark’ on the half-way line when he went long midway through the first half.
‘We’re open to giving the new rules a real good go,’ said manager Paul McLoughlin.
On this evidence, the package of rules has the capacity to change Gaelic football. For better? That will become clearer as the body of evidence mounts in the weeks ahead.