Mark unfairly punishes those who perfected group tackling
It’s fair enough to declare that spectators like to see players field a ball over their head. It’s also fair enough if they don’t like to see a successful catch followed up by opponents swarming all over the catcher. But since when did what you prefer to see become the basis for the rules of the game?
The status of particular skills in a game is always subject to change. It never remains static, no matter what that sport is. There was a time when the foot-rush was a potent weapon in the armoury of any rugby pack trying to make ground; there was also a time when overhead pulling in hurling was both a test of nerve and an accepted way to get the ball upfield.
What happened to both of those skills was that the sport’s development overtook and retired them. In every team sport possession is the only game in town, and any on-field activity which doesn’t retain possession — like running in a group with the ball bouncing haphazardly in front of you, or driving a sliotar to a random part of the field — fell into disuse.
The difference with the introduction of the mark is that on the surface it appears to reward the possession game, giving the successful fielder the option of playing on or taking a kick. However, that’s already being done with the short, targeted kick-outs, which are less risky than their longer counterparts and far more likely to see a team retaining the ball.
The only knock against those short kick-outs is, as far as we can see, that they’re not long kick-outs, as long kick-outs lead to the manly collision of Gaels in the ozone high above the green sward of midfield. How short kick-outs might be described as slowing the game down when Gaelic football was supposedly never played by athletes as fit as today’s footballers is baffling.
Introducing the mark is clearly punishing teams which have perfected group tackling, which is unfair. There is nothing illegal about players pressing the ball and putting a man in possession under pressure; if that doesn’t satisfy an arbitrary view of what is or is not attractive to watch, then what next? Punishing players who kick the ball wide on the near post side because that’s something football supporters don’t enjoy seeing?
Using the rulebook to encourage the art of high fielding — how easily that description falls on the page, if you notice, compared to references to the art of defending — establishes a dangerous precedent. It means that in that rule book some skills are more equal than others, which isn’t conducive to consistent legislation. It also introduces arbitrary standards — what’s attractive, what’s not — into what should be an objective set of strictures.
If part of the rationale is to encourage goalkeepers to forsake short, targeted kick-outs in favour a lengthy boot down the field to speed the game up, then it’s founded on a flawed premise. Kicking the ball out long doesn’t guarantee possession now, with no legislative reward for fielding cleanly. Innovative managers are obviously going to encourage their players to break the ball 30 metres back down the field when it’s kicked out to them rather than risk conceding free kicks if they don’t.
The 20-metre kick-out to a deep-lying wing-forward isn’t a phenomenon that would be familiar to those who watched Gaelic football in past decades, but it’s there and it’s fair, and even snobs may grow to like it. If you’re making rules based on what’s attractive, remember Jean Anouilh said years ago that things are beautiful if you love them.
