Clean pick-up ‘will speed up football’

MICK O’DWYER is adamant the introduction of the clean pick-up — as used in the ladies and International Rules games — can speed up Gaelic football considerably and reduce the potential for refereeing error.

Revealing in Croke Park yesterday that he had already tried it at a number of training sessions with Laois, he said it had made "an unbelievable" difference to the pace at which the game could be played.

The pick-up is one of five main changes to the playing rules in football to be experimented with in the upcoming subsidiary competitions, with a more radical change proposed for hurling to award two points for a line ball hit (directly) over the bar.