Too early to go mellow on yellow

ALL these good people seeing red over a few yellow cards, what’s the problem?

All the current GAA sin-bin/yellow-card experiment is doing is confirming what everyone knew all along, that in far too many instances, gaelic football has become a cynical, foul-ridden sport.

Loudest of all in their condemnation have been the team managers, those most affected especially so.

"Can we please get back to gaelic football?" pleaded Sean Boylan, after Sunday's farcical O'Byrne Cup loss to Kildare, when his team had to go for a spell with only 12 players.

Westmeath's Páidí Ó Sé too was critical, as was Offaly manager Kevin Kilmurry, with his claim that under the sin-bin system, gaelic football is now "a different ball-game than I used to play."

Well, due respects Kevin, but that's the whole idea.

I don't want to be disrespectful here, certainly not to the likes of Sean Boylan, Páidí Ó Sé, even Mick O'Dwyer himself, the ultimate GAA manager, all of whom have dedicated their lives to gaelic football.

I ave a certain sympathy for them, but only so much. Mine has not been the only voice crying out for changes in the rules for the past several years, to make it a universally attractive game.

For some time now, and I mean decades, only a few teams have played gaelic football as it was meant to be played, manly, physical, sporting, all the skills on show minus the deliberate, premeditated fouling designed to stop opponents at source, in their own half of the field.

Only the truly blind would argue against the fact that the game had become blighted by cynicism, by those who are more than prepared to give away foul after foul away from the danger zone, with the simple game-plan of preventing their opponents from getting near that danger zone.

They were doing it with impunity, because there was no real deterrent. Now there is, and oh, such wailing and gnashing of teeth.

There are those, in Cork especially, who would look at Sean Boylan's protestations without a lot of sympathy.

But there was cynicism in gaelic football before his powerful All-Ireland-winning teams of the late 80's and there has been cynicism since, on an even grander scale.

Boylan is as honourable a man as you'll meet; he didn't introduce tactical fouling to gaelic football, didn't coach it, didn't encourage it. He didn't need to. His players were strong individuals, knew what they could get away with and played the system as well as they played the game.

Now it could be argued that Boylan should have discouraged that, but what kind of a manager would that make him? His side were collecting Leinster titles by the fistful before reaching and winning All-Ireland finals.

It was up the referees, in the first instance, to curb the 'enthusiasm' of the cynical, repeat-foul player. They didn't, patently. It was then up to the game's legislators to step in, thus this sin-bin experiment.

What we're seeing now is just a taste of what would have happened had referees over the past couple of decades implemented the rules to the letter, it's just that instead of the sin-bin, a lot of those players would have been taking the long walk to the dressing-room, for a longer rest.

Even with most referees ignoring a lot of the fouling that was going on, most top gaelic football games were perpetually interrupted by the loud whistle blast, making a mockery of the spectacle.

Played the way it should be played, gaelic football is a superb sport, at the top level especially. But over the past decade or more, we were only seeing glimpses of that. These new rules in no way affect the basic rules of the sport. What they do is punish those who, because of lack of ability or because of a cynical win-at-all-costs attitude, do not wish to play within those rules.

The GAA must hold its nerve, continue this experiment without dilution. Ten minutes too long, we're told, in a 70-minute game; rugby, soccer are 80 and 90 minutes

respectively. Well, tough. GAA is 15-man, against 11 for soccer, so the extra man isn't as big a loss; one man out of the defensive line in rugby is a far greater disadvantage than one man out of the full-forward line in gaelic football.

The object of this exercise is to make gaelic football a more honest, cleaner and free-flowing spectacle.

Team managers, being frontline, were always going to complain; the GAA should listen, then explain, and explain again, the new message.

Not alone does fouling not pay, anymore, fouling hurts in this new ball-game, hurts those who are doing the fouling. The way it should be.