Croker plans to tackle ill-discipline still on track
The first game under the new rules — which will see players sent to the line for yellow card offences and replaced by a teammate — took place a fortnight ago and two more were held on Saturday.
The first game was recorded and used in a video presentation and Q&A session for referees in Croke Park on Saturday. Further educational sessions will be held between now and Christmas.
Maurice Deegan, who refereed this year’s All-Ireland football final between Tyrone and Kerry, was in Carlow on Saturday to test the new rules in an eight-team minor football tournament hosted by Carlow Éire Óg.
The rules come into operation in January in pre-season tournaments and will also be used in the National Leagues.
“We are experimenting with this in the pre-season tournaments and the National League,” said Liam O’Neill, who chaired the task force responsible for drawing up the new regulations.
“We are reasonably confident we have a good package but, if it doesn’t work or any of the rules don’t work, then we will pull it. We feel the package we have at the moment will tidy up the games and increase skill levels.”
O’Neill stated he was not on a personal “crusade” to clean up the game but claimed there was an ambivalence towards ill discipline in the GAA which had to be tackled.
The worry must be that the new rules will be criticised by players and managers unfamiliar with the guidelines, as was the case in 2005 when the ‘sin bin’ experiment was abruptly dropped after a barrage of complaints.
“A study of the league in 2005, when we had rule changes in as well, showed that there was never a league with so many high scores. There were fewer fouls, fewer red and yellow cards and better quality games.
“The officials who voted on those proposals at that particular time shirked our responsibilities because we could have cleaned it up two years ago and we didn’t do it. We have the chance to do it now.”
O’Neill was speaking in a workshop at the GAA Games and Development Conference in Croke Park, where a disappointingly small crowd were in attendance.
The size of the task awaiting referees next year — and every year — was made abundantly clear by one speaker from the floor, a match official at local level, who admitted he knew nothing about the playing rules until he hung up the boots and took up the whistle.
According to O’Neill, the new rules — which are broken down into offences meriting black, yellow and red cards — will offer clarity and encourage more to take up refereeing
Interestingly, there are five more offences, 35 in all, listed in the experimental rules for hurling than in football despite the fact that the latter has a far greater problem in the area of persistent fouling.
The possibility of delaying their use at club level is an acknowledgement of the educational and other practical work that needs to be done at ground level but O’Neill believes the new rules will be as easy to operate at Junior ‘B’ level as in Croke Park itself.
One of the task force’s guiding principles was that they wanted referees to put players to the sideline for highly disruptive fouls and that will incorporate a complete change in mentality.
O’Neill talked of one U-16 football match in Ulster lately where the star player on one team was fouled 19 times and he believes the new rules will ensure that the sentences for such situations now match the offences.
“There is still a punishment for teams who lose players because coaches and managers are going to have to consider, at the start of the season, the type of player they have in their squad. A player who continually commits yellow card offences isn’t going to be much use to you. The player himself knows now he will have to consider his actions because, once you foul now, you are on your way to the sideline.”
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