Dolan in favour of sin-binning

CORK chairman Mick Dolan would favour the introduction of a sin-bin rather than the amended disciplinary system for playing offences being recommended, which would see a player sent off after a second cautionable offence and replaced.

Recalling that he also spoke on the subject in his address to the 2006 convention, he said that he was glad to see the two All-Ireland final referees speak out in favour of sin-binning.

“This form of punishment would be far better and have a better effect on players who constantly foul — rather than the present system of bookings and yellow cards,” he commented.

Addressing the issue of burnout, he said he didn’t believe that doing away with the minor and U21 competitions (only at inter-county level, for a two- year trial period) would tackle the problem. “The problem lies with the over-training of teams running players into the ground — who, when all is said and done, are only amateurs.

And, as far as he was concerned, this was merely ‘aping’ rugby, American football or Australian Rules ‘gurus’ whose ideals “fall flat after a couple of years anyway!”

“We should be spending more time at the basic skills and those who desire to play at inter-county level should be bringing themselves up to a level of fitness required — and not be wasting valuable time running them around pitches, when time could be better spend learning and developing skills and teamwork.”

Dolan called for a different approach to training football teams, saying he would like to see hand-passing reduced to the minimum and replaced with accurate foot-passing. “It is football we are playing, not handball,” he added.

He also paid tribute to former president Con Murphy, who died during the year, saying he was “a gentleman who lived and preached the ideals of the association and laid down markers for everybody else to follow.”