Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
WHAT ARE HUGH THINKING?
Martin blasts GAA over rules ‘chaos’
FORMER Donegal All-ireland winner Martin Mchugh has joined the growing chorus of criticism of the new three hand pass limit and branded it as “a mess”.
“It is going to be chaos,” Mchugh warned with a number of new rules set to be trialled during the Allianz Leagues, including the sin bin and an attacking mark.
The Kilcar man strongly questioned the value of the reduction in the number of hand passes to three.
“What is the referee doing? Counting three hand passes and not able to see other things going on in different areas,” said Mchugh, father of current Donegal stars Ryan and Mark
“The crowd will be giving out and this time I think they have really made a mess. I can’t see any of the changes working really.
“But what is going to happen is that teams will do three hand passes and then it will be kicked back.
“If they were going to curtail the hand pass, what they should have done was the minute you went inside the opposition’s 45, you are allowed to hand pass as much as you can.
“But up to that it could be three passes in your own half as people don’t like all this hand-passing that goes on in a team’s defence especially if they are protecting a lead.
“It is going to be chaos because teams are hand passing the ball, look at Corofin (inset), exhibition stuff.”
Mchugh also called for the end of the provincial championships and the introduction of a nationwide Leaguestyle system of eight groups of four teams. He added that he was in favour of a second- tier competition where the bottom 16 teams could play for a ‘Paidi O Se Cup’ on the same day as the All -Ireland final.
“Our Leagues are the best competitions we have and they should not be tampering with the League,” he said.
“You look forward to seeing these games in the League. You are fed up meeting the same teams in the Championship.
“The NFL has been brilliant, and I think these changes are all down to money in my opinion.
“Crowds are down, TV viewership is down and Dublin is dominating but the problem is the provincial championships. Do away with the provincial championships, take in eight groups of four and have a League system.” WHEN the experimental rules for Gaelic football were first floated at the beginning of last month, very few would have expected that all five would make it to the start of the Allianz League.
It appeared that the thinking of the Standing Committee on Playing Rules was that by throwing out five initially, two or maybe three at most would emerge at the end of the consultation process.
But while that process led to a fair degree of tweaking with two of them, there will be five new rules for referees to contend with when the pre-season competitions get underway next month and into the League in January. Experimental rules have been trialled often in the past but never on this scale. Following trial matches among college teams, the only change to the kickout will see it taken from the 20m line, something which isn’t going to place a greater burden on referees.
The rule around sideline kicks, which must go forward unless they’re inside the 13m line, is also easy to implement, even if the thinking behind it may be flawed and it’s hard to see how it improves the game.
The penalty of a sin bin for a black card instead of a substitution shouldn’t tax referees too much either.
But the restriction of the handpass and the new advanced mark certainly will.
It’s only right to withhold judgement until we see the rules in play, but it’s easy to see where the pitfalls are.
Referees’ eyes may not always be calibrated to what represents a 20m kick to win a mark. What if one awarded for a kick over, say 17m or even less, results in a winning point?
Being human, they’re bound to lose count on certain handpass chains.
Players will opt to kick backwards to retain possession after reaching the limit of three handpasses and the frequency with which this happens will likely be what this experiment stands or falls on.
The GAA has long been criticised for being overly conservative in how it evolves; now it stands accused of being too radical.
Some or all of the new rules may have a place in the game’s future but surely the League isn’t the testing ground for them.
Whatever happens, they won’t be in place for next year’s Championship, making for an unedifying scenario where players and managers across the country are essentially preparing to play two different codes in 2019.