Already there’s a championship case for sin-bin and the mark

We’re barely into February and two of seven rounds of the Allianz National Football League are already in the rear-view mirror.

It won’t be until we’ve had a full body of league games that we’ll be properly able to assess what impact, if any, the new rules have had on the flow and quality of the football on show.

Early indications would suggest that many of the top tier teams haven’t really engaged with the temporary amendments to the rulebook.

You can tell by the confusion that has occurred in some games, with several players not being sure about what actually constitutes an offensive or defensive mark.

For most of those sides in Division One, the championship will still be the benchmark by which they measure the success of their season, so perhaps the other divisions would be the best indicator of the possible positives or negatives of the new rules.

What’s the point in Jim Gavin changing the way Dublin play for seven games and then have another set of rules for the championship? Or Peter Keane or James Horan.

They seem to be tolerating rather than embracing the changes.

Which begs the question: Why bring them in for this year’s league with the clause that they must be voted on to see if they’re used in next season’s championship.

If they were to fast-track the process and propose the changes to come into the championship this season, I think we could have seen all the big guns really searching for innovative ways to exploit them to their full potential.

Take the offensive mark for example — without seeing every game across each division obviously, teams haven’t really looked to overly exploit the benefits of it in the early rounds.

Monaghan fashioned a big win over Dublin in round one and part of that success was built on the use of some clever kicking, good movement, and well taken offensive marks in the second half.

The initial thoughts of the mark gave people the impression that it would be a return to finding the tallest guy in the parish and a throw-back to hoofing ball on top of the square.

The idea is clearly to incentivise the kick pass and encourage teams to use the boot rather than the hand when entering the attack.

But instead of lamping ball on top of a crowded goalmouth with a slim chance of a contested high catch, teams could be working on a system to incorporate finding targets 25–35 yards out from goal. Working across the line about 10 yards inside the 45.

It would give guys coming up the pitch with the ball a more realistic kick pass option to go over the initial glut of defensive bodies and away from the long hopeful hoof in around the house.

Get your good kickers like Conor McManus working out to those less populated areas to where they have a chance of finding a one-on-one match up.

They’ll win more ball out there and have 15 seconds to make their decision, whether to shoot or not. For players of that quality, it offers an easy score opportunity.

While I wasn’t initially sure about the change to the black card rule — I’d still be in favour of advancing the ball 50 yards from the spot of a black card foul — I do like what I’ve seen so far from the sin-bin.

Again, it’s something that coaches could do more with in terms of having a go-to plan as soon as the opposition lose a player for 10 minutes.

In some sense, it’s nearly easier to cope with losing a man because everybody just drops one position deeper and sits back to protect the house and slow the play.

In ice hockey, teams are in a ‘power-play’ situation when the opposition lose a player to the penalty box. It’s essentially the same scenario as our sin-bin.

When that happens, teams have certain go-to formations and plays to try and exploit that numerical advantage as much as possible.

It would be fascinating to see inter-county coaches challenging their players to really go after an opposition as soon as they lose a player to a black card.

It wouldn’t use up that much of a team’s practice time to add in a few basic strategies for just that situation.

It doesn’t necessarily have to be rocket science, but by just committing extra numbers to the attack for the 10 minutes would immediately put the opposition under more pressure.

Kerry lost Tom O’Sullivan in the second half of their win over Cavan on Sunday and they proceeded to outscore the home side, who had their full complement of players, by four points during that period. You’d have thought it might be the other way around.

It would be an interesting study to look back at the conclusion of the league and analyse the scoring patterns of teams during the 10-minute period of the sin-bin.

One would expect that teams with a numerical advantage should be ones with a higher scoring return during that time.

Again, if it was a change that could be made permanent in this year’s championship, it would encourage managers and coaches to be more adventurous in terms of finding ways of exploiting the situation.

It’s certainly a rule that has added different opportunities to the game and isn’t as harsh a punishment for players who make an early misdemeanour.

I’d love to see a situation where the best of these rules could be facilitated in the 2019 championship.

I’ve seen enough of the offensive mark in two rounds to know it is an absolutely positive incentive for teams to kick the ball and with the certainty of its inclusion in the championship, it would encourage teams to explore ways to get the most out of it.

It’s the same with the sin-bin… what’s the point in waiting?

Anything that helps the flow of the game and counters the overly defensive current state of play should be welcomed with open arms.

If the rules work now and improve the game, get them championship-ready sooner rather than later.