Larry Ryan: Cracking the code on Gaelic football's handpass problem

It seems the sight of Roscommon keeping the ball for fully six minutes in Croke Park has tipped them into another bout of the old despair.

FRENETIC: Action from the 1977 Dublin v. Kerry All-Ireland football semi-final at Croke Park. Kevin Moran about to block a fisted pass from Kerry's Paud O'Shea. 

Myself and the twins embarked on a cultural exchange programme this week, beginning with a few old Malory Towers books that are lying around the house. In between the midnight feasts and trips to sick bay throughout Enid Blyton’s chronicles of post-war boarding school life in Cornwall, the lacrosse action is frenetic. It’s all, gosh, tough tackles and contests for the ball and soaring catches and madcap sprints from end to end.

So what’s this caper we see nowadays on ESPN? Lacrosse players walking around the pitch, casually chucking the ball to each other, keeping possession under not the slightest pressure. They may as well be enjoying a ginger beer.