Moving forward without having to drag up the past
The Football Review Committee seriously thought about it and there would have been some merit to it, but ultimately some things and such things are either difficult or impossible to legislate for.
At times too the problem can be exaggerated. Crossmaglen Rangers and Dr Crokes in recent weeks have either claimed or been claimed to be the saviours of the lost art of foot-passing in football but they’re hardly the outliers they’re been hyped up to be. Ballymun Kickhams, likewise, pride themselves on their kicking game. At intercounty level Kerry have largely been an excellent kick-passing team for a decade. This year’s All-Ireland semi-finalists Mayo feature wing and corner-backs who are far superior foot-passers of the ball than most All-Ireland-winning teams of the ’90s, while Dublin’s 2011 All-Ireland quarter-final demolition of Tyrone was an exhibition of how to move the ball by foot. Most of the top teams express themselves and transport themselves by kicking the thing. That won’t be lost on everyone else for too long.
A bit like the game it was scrutinising, the Football Review Committee’s report is not perfect but it is a lot better than people have speculated. It was compiled by men who love the game and now, from this exercise, have an even better understanding of their game, the end result which should be an even better game. Some of their suggestions need tweaks, some will be shot down, but for the most part it is good, out to eliminate or at least reduce the bad and the ugly.
Some of the suggestions will even help hurling, as much as that game hates having change prompted by football foisted upon it. Finally, almost 15 years after the Jimmy Cooney incident, we will finally have a visible clock for timekeeping. Many is the column I got out of that subject, mainly because it cost many a team a chance to win a big game. Like numerous other proposals in the review, it requires further detail and powers, such as including stoppages for substitutions, but at last one of the most obvious flaws in Gaelic games officiating is being properly addressed.
Another real irritant — and regular column subject of ours — is the unsightly follow-on that occurs when a player has won a free out the field but is prevented from taking it by the gamesmanship of an opponent. The FRC propose that if anyone is impeding a free being quickly taken, the ball will be moved 30m. That too is a move for the better.
The clean pick-up will also help speed up the game and reduce ambiguity. For sure there’s been a plausible reason for the status quo — that it’s a skill unique to our sport — but not quite a strong enough one; if anything, that was an example of a hurling rule being imposed on football. The FRC’s recommendation is certainly worth an experiment but it would be better if Congress 2013 only approved that and the other proposals were experimented with for the 2014 league.
That process would be even more appropriate in the case of the report’s biggest recommendation: the distinction between an accidental and a deliberate foul, the latter resulting in being substituted for the remainder of the game, a team with three yellow cards or more unable to replace the next dismissed player, and a player with three cards over a season hit with a two-game ban.
It is an honourable attempt to tackle cynical fouling, both by the individual and the team, but will players be shown straight red cards anymore or will they be reduced to just yellow cards? Also, three yellow cards over the course of an entire season, say 12 inter-county games, hardly warrants missing out on an All-Ireland final. Some tweaking is required there, but the principle is sound.
The jury is out on whether the mark will encourage or stifle high fielding. For all the research the group undertook, it had no data establishing whether the 2009 league enhanced or reduced the frequency of high fielding.
That extra 10 minutes playing with the club has merit, though it could leave county players more susceptible to injury. Maybe restrict it to just club championship games and leave club league games at 60 minutes.
But at least it’s now up for debate.
Our fear back in the spring was that the FRC were starting off from a position of how bad the current game is and how it should be more like it once was. Thankfully they’ve seen that it is better these days but can be even better.
