Tackling properly the key to winning

Last week I made a casual reference to ‘the mark’ and the debate at the GAA Congress about this matter.

For those who didn’t trawl through the transcripts from the GAA talkathon up in Derry, this is a recurring discussion which centres on the reward for high fielding in Australian Rules – when a player makes a clean catch (once the ball’s travelled ten yards) he’s allowed to choose whether to carry on playing or take a free-kick, in effect.

The attraction of such a rule in Gaelic football would be that you’d eradicate the swarming and crowding of players who make a high catch by opponents; at present if a player makes a clean catch in the middle of the field it’s almost counterproductive because as soon as he lands he’s surrounded by opposing players who bottle him up.