John Fogarty: Hurling always ahead of its rules
MESSAGES: Waterford manager Davy Fitzgerald used a team official on the terrace to relay messages to the field. Pic: Piaras Ă MĂdheach/Sportsfile
Not that Barry Kelly could have refereed it â his native Westmeath being involved and he retired from the inter-county game â but itâs just as well he was not in the man in the middle in Mullingar on Sunday.
The game, he admitted, would have been laden with frees. âThe level of throwing the ball in hurling has reached epidemic proportions based on what I witnessed in Cusack Park,â he messaged on Sunday about the game against Wexford. âIâd say the ratio of fouls to correct passes was eight to one.
âThe option of making players pass the ball from the hurl will have to be considered if it continues in the same vein. Itâs become laughable. Players are so far from the proper hand-pass of release and strike. Itâs being released and thereâs approximately 100 per game as itâs such an intrinsic part of game-plans.â
Possession was king when Cork broke the Kilkenny cycle in the mid-2000s but now itâs the royal flush. The proposal Kelly referred to, Conor OâDonovanâs motion to do away with the hand-pass and insist the ball be transferred by the hurley, was narrowly defeated at last Decemberâs Tipperary convention. Had it passed, it wouldnât be debated at Congress until 2025 because of the rule that limits clubs to putting forward playing rules changes every five years. But it could resurface if this epidemic of thrown balls continues.
Reporting from Kilkenny on Sunday and taking in the televised games in Portlaoise and Limerick on Saturday, there is little doubt that the ball is being passed without a release or an obvious one from the hand. The rulebook insists on a âdefinite striking action of a handâ but as this column argued last year the addition of the word âcleanâ would be a more appropriate adjective as it would empower referees to whistle players when they have not sufficiently demonstrated they have released the sliotar.Â
Portlaoise also saw a Waterford team official stationed for periods of the game on the terraces behind Billy Nolan where he provided direction. He had done the same in Fraher Field for Shaun OâBrien the week previous. Without entering the field or pitch enclosure, he was not breaking any rules or regulations, although he appeared to be moved away by stewards in the second half at Laois Hire OâMoore Park.
Speaking to TG4 afterwards, manager Davy Fitzgerald made no apologies for the ploy in lieu of a maor foirne. âI think heâs entitled to be (there),â he told MicheĂĄl Ă Domhnaill. âYou can have as many people as you like behind the goals. Heâs looking at the game, heâs giving an instruction or two because weâre not allowed with maor foirne gone to get messages to move here, there and any place. Itâs so difficult because in hurling it goes so fast and you have to make changes.
âI canât get to the other side of the field, I canât get there. I donât see that heâs doing anything wrong there. Weâre just trying to keep the game moving as quick as we can and get the messages (out) without going out onto the field if we can.â
In proposing a limited return of the maor foirne, the Central Competitions Control Committee had hoped to avoid such scenarios. However, the playing rules committee insisted to Central Council that the running selector should not come back in any form and so teams are circumventing the lack of one to communicate with players during games. Waterford arenât the only ones. Although they are not permitted, hurley carriers were micâed up at other games over the weekend.
Last year, Limerick manager John Kiely took exception to claims he was using the teamâs medics to pass on instructions. That may have been âover-analysisâ as Kiely suggested and Limerick fared just as well without the water break tactics board they had the previous two seasons, but he is among the managers insisting on the return of the maor foirne.
On Friday, it was revealed by the GAA that the sliotar workgroupâs brief has now extended to hurleys. This Saturday, they present a motion to annual Congress, which will give them the authority to set out the terms for approved hurleys based on compliance with standards and tests. So, after bringing in measures to reflect how the ball has changed, they are now looking to increase the widely-floated maximum hurley bas size â 13 centimetres â to mirror another reality of the game. For a long time now many of hurlingâs rules and regulations have served as speed limits to reach and breach.
The acceleration of the gameâs innovation embarrasses its parameters. Forgetting the hand-pass, the alternative maor foirne and hurley sizes, the use of the spare hand and playersâ freedom to restart a possession merely by dropping the ball further demonstrate how tenuous the rulebook has become. It can try and play catch-up but hurlingâs lawlessness, dangerous as it is beautiful, has an abundance of scope.
It should never cease to amaze how counties are able to back a new rule, then realise their good intentions were unworkable or ill-fitting and call for its abandonment.
Look at the volume of motions for this weekendâs annual Congress agenda calling for the return of the even underage years as the default grades. Itâs a real sticky wicket for the GAA who will hope their offer to counties to run their underage grades as they see fit at Central Council last month will compel some of the underage proposals to be withdrawn.
The inter-county underage grades will do well to reflect the growing number of 19-year-olds that will be sitting the Leaving Certificate/A Levels and 16-year-olds the Junior Certificate/GCSEs in the coming years.
This yearâs All-Ireland minor football quarter-finals in June are smack bang in the middle of the latter. And for all the genuine support for the split season just wait until one of, if not both All-Ireland senior inter-county finals return to August.
It may only be an extra week for both competitions but it is coming and donât expect too much uproar.
Wexford may be champions of the U17 grade and decoupling yet they are looking to relax the rule that affects U20 inter-county footballers and hurlers lining out for their senior teams. They want a new seven-day window so that it will be possible for a U20 player to line out for both his underage and senior county teams but not in the same seven-day block, Friday morning to Thursday evening.
After some of the best senior talent either missed out on the opportunity to play U20 for their counties or missed major U20 games (David Clifford, SeĂĄn OâShea, CiarĂĄn Joyce, Cathal OâNeill to name but four), the motion will find favour in several quarters but once more it is an easing of a rule introduced to unburden the gameâs best players. Buyersâ remorse strikes again.
Galway chairman Paul Bellew isnât afraid to make a statement as he showed last year when highlighting the financial resources made available to the countyâs teams to reach All-Ireland finals. Last weekâs claim that delegatesâ failure to support Galwayâs inclusion in either the Leinster or Munster minor hurling championship later this year would be âa stain on the championshipâ wonât go down well in some quarters but it does underline just how determined he is for it to happen.
To get either the Leinster or Munster Council to rip up their fixtures, as the motion calls, is a major ask but thatâs not to say they canât be accommodated in 2024. And as Bellew says, were that to happen he would have no issue with the Galway senior hurling champions entering a provincial championship either.
Delegates tend to react negatively to threats but then Bellew seemed to suggest the motion will be a difficult sell anyway. âPeople who I would describe as being in-the-know at levels closer to Croke Park would have the feeling that our motion will not pass,â he remarked.
With a Special Congress later this year to debate the reformatting of the GAA Official Guide, might a deal be done to revisit the proposal with a mind to coming into force in 2024? Regardless, integration should happen as Galway are so willingly prepared to surrender their less-than-splendid isolation.
