Managers driven by self-interest rather than what’s right
“There is nothing wrong with the way the game is being played now.”
That’s right. Neither Jim nor Rory made those comments at the weekend. The above statements were made earlier this year during the debate about the black card rule.
The Donegal management team was opposed to the new sanctions. At the time, the stance adopted by McGuinness and Gallagher was entirely understandable.
They had just guided Donegal to the All-Ireland title. In doing so, they had taken their team from the preliminary round of the Ulster Championship to the steps of the Hogan Stand. Seven games. Seven wins.
Of course they didn’t think there was a lot wrong with Gaelic football. And Jim and Rory weren’t the only high-profile figures calling for the status quo to be retained.
Tyrone manager Mickey Harte was also insisting that the current rules provided sufficient deterrent against the dark arts.
I totally disagreed with the three men and I wrote a column stating as much. The gist of the article was that when it comes to the rules of Gaelic football, we shouldn’t pay much heed to the opinions of managers because they are in the business of winning games. That is their chief priority.
Consequently, they’re not necessarily interested in what is good for the game of Gaelic football. They are motivated by what is good for their teams — and that creates a serious blind spot.
It’s only natural that when a manager has mastered the rules, and his team is winning games, he will resist change.
But more recently, Jim McGuinness is starting to see that there is a whole lot wrong with the game. As the Donegal manager pointed out at the weekend, four of his players have suffered concussion during this year’s Championship. Jim says his players are being “targeted”. And there is evidence to back McGuinness’s claim.
The Sunday Game highlighted an incident from Saturday’s game in Carrick-on-Shannon in which Michael Murphy was obstructed by a Laois player. The third-man tackle incensed McGuinness and Gallagher.
Television footage showed both men making a beeline for the linesman as they urged the match official to take some action.
Viewers who watched the foul on Murphy will not have been overly shocked. It was your bog standard off-the-ball foul that goes on repeatedly in games. It’s nothing new. It has been happening for years.
It is exactly the type of cynical manoeuvre that the black card was designed to eradicate. And yes, that would be the same black card which Jim McGuinness and Rory Gallagher spoke out against.
Under the new rules which are due to be introduced next year, a player could receive a black card if he “deliberately body collides with an opponent for the purpose oftaking him out of a movement of play”.
All of a sudden Jim is starting to see the attraction of the black card. It’s just a pity that the revelation only occurred to him when the problem started to seriously affect Donegal.
But that is the problem with managers expounding their opinions about the game. They are only concerned with one team.
When outlining his opposition to the black card, Mickey Harte repeatedly insisted that the rulebook provides adequate punishment for cynical fouling. Again, most neutral observers who watched the manner in which Tyrone closed out their win against Meath would disagree with that opinion.
Referee Maurice Deegan implemented the rules. When Tyrone fouled, he awarded a free-kick. When Stephen O’Neill hauled a player to the ground, Deegan issued a second yellow.
But these penalties were of damned little use to Meath. Trailing by two points and with the constant stoppages running down the clock, the Royals needed a goal.
Yet those who criticise the Red Hands are being naïve, high-minded, or they just don’t like Tyrone.
The problem isn’t Tyrone. The problem is the rules. Tyrone simply used the flaws in the GAA’s Official Guide to their advantage.
But no county has the monopoly on cynicism. That situation could just as easily be reversed.
On Saturday evening, Sean Cavanagh rolled back the years with a vintage performance. An individual who has been ‘targeted’ throughout his career, it was a pleasure to see the former Footballer of the Year strutting his stuff.
Good rules should allow great footballers to express themselves. But the reason we saw Cavanagh at his best had nothing to do with the rules.
In the first half, Meath didn’t get a player to tug and haul at Cavanagh when he tried to make an overlapping run. They didn’t foul him the moment he won possession. They didn’t obstruct Cavanagh’s path with third-man tackles. Meath will rue their innocence, because if they had employed those tactics they would probably have won the game. Surely that should tell us something. Sadly, it goes without saying it will only be a matter of time before those underhand methods are employed against Cavanagh.
If it does happen, and Tyrone lose because their best player has been once again dogged out of a game, then who knows?
Maybe even Mickey Harte will come to see that our rulebook is far from perfect.
