Oisín McConville: Here’s the reason The Mark won’t work in football

“Don’t f*** about with it, kick it out to the big man in the middle.”

“But he couldn’t catch a cold.”

“Keep kicking it to him, he is bound to win one soon.”

Not a phrase from when God was a garsún nor the time of black and white pictures or even pre multi- coloured boots. Kick it out and let them fight for it is not as dated a concept as people may think. It’s really only in the last 15 years we truly recognised the phrase “ball retention” in the GAA.

Certainly, in this time teams have been able to curb and sometimes negate the influence of the Ó Sés, the McDermotts, the McGranes and the rest of those primary ball winners. They never thought such tactics would have rendered them completely surplus to requirements.

These guys had always been able to play an integral part in the majority of games they’ve participated in. The traditional midfield battle, however, has morphed from 2-v-2 to 5-v-12 on both teams. The greatest trick for a manager nowadays is to win his own kick-outs, not by accident or a stroke of fortune, but by design.

Having lived through a few generations of tactical GAA innovators, I am not quite sure why the strength of support for The Mark is so strong. We have changed and tweaked over the last two decades and we have largely reverted back to type.

So what positives does the mark potentially offer?

1. Potentially, a chance to see the great exponents of a high catch be rewarded with a free kick should they choose to take it.

2. Potentially, more ball being kicked to the middle of the field recreating the traditional midfield battle.

But what does a mark offer us in reality? Potentially, more short kick-outs than ever, with a huge reluctance to give a bigger opposition midfield the advantages in this area. Failing that, a mass of bodies in the midfield in a relentless battle not to give away that crucial mark.

My thinking now is instead of it being a huge change to the game we have been watching for the last 10 years, the mark will instead feed into a lot of coaching fixation with ‘safety first’. Can I see our top ‘keepers change their goals as a result of the mark? Absolutely not. Paddy O’Rourke, Niall Morgan, Paul Durcan and the pioneer of keeping possession from your own kick-out, Stephen Cluxton, are all great goalkeepers. Their No 1 attribute to their team, however, is how they can pick a man out from 50/60 yards away. Cluxton redefined the act of goalkeeping not through shot-stopping or comfort under the high ball but by pinging a precise eight iron to the onrushing midfield or half-forward. When Cluxton’s kick outs were pressured, in particular by Meath in 2012 and Donegal in 2014, how Dublin struggled. Neither of these events happened by changing the rules but merely by good planning and great coaching augmenting competent footballers.

How do referees cope with the mark? Let’s not roll out the old “the refs have a tough enough job”. I too feel like my job can be very difficult at times but if I resort to the old “poor me, my job’s not easy, like”, I fear I would be laughed out of the place.

So that aside, is the mark difficult to identify? Absolutely not. It’s when we hit the ground the anomalies of the rule would start. Do I take the free or not? Do I play on? Can I play on? Is it a mark? Was that really five seconds?

In my opinion, there are too many possibilities this would not be refereed well and to again run the risk of turning the game into an utter farce. With the mark, we are trying to solve a problem that doesn’t actually exist. We are in an era of full-time paid managers, coaches and statisticians – these guys have endless hours to work on ways to coach around such rule changes.

The “mark” of the man is, if he can get up and fetch the O’Neills in the middle of the field under the stiffest pressure. And, let’s face it, that’s been the case since God was a garsún.