Burns feels rules frustration

FORMER Armagh captain Jarlath Burns has called for decisions relating to playing rules to be taken out of Congress’s hands after the dismissal of the majority of the experimental rules in Newcastle, Co Down on Friday night.

Motions relating to the ‘mark’, the square-ball rule and the hand pass, on trial during the national leagues, all failed to receive the two-third majority required, although the debate on the former was largely positive prior to the vote.

The GAA’s regulations dictate that playing rules can only be visited every five years which means that it will be 2015 before similar ideas and proposals can be put to the yearly gathering.

Burns, accepting time constraints were an issue due to 123 motions on the clár, felt that the experimental rules were dealt with too quickly at the Friday night session.

“The other thing I would say is that every five years we should have a special congress and this congress, which deliberates on rule changes, should have the cathaoirleach, the games manager from each county, a referees coordinator and a player and maybe the captain or a nominated senior player from each county.

“There should be a completely different profile. We don’t ask our games people to adjudicate on the machinations of the rule book. We would never send them to the DRA to interpret a rule or the official guide so why are we then taking our administrators to adjudicate on the rights and wrongs of the games which are separate from the administration?”

Burns’ proposal was made after Saturday’s session and his words were indicative of some of the frustrations felt by delegates.

No doubt, those frustrations must be shared by members of the relevant committees charged last year with putting together the proposals only to see them dismissed in such a breezy fashion.

President Christy Cooney said afterwards that democracy had spoken and that it was time to move on and refused to be drawn on whether such rejections would dissuade members from volunteering for such committees in future.

“The reason we put these groups in place was to have a look at them and to experiment.

“If we waited for clubs and counties to put motions to Congress and if they were passed they have to be applied within a month. They may not have been tried and they may be a disaster and we’re stuck with them for the next five years. It’s the right of Congress to decide on what they think is right. They have done that and we respect that.”

How Congress makes it decisions was a motion in itself. As it is, rule changes require a two-thirds majority but one proposal on Saturday called for that to be reduced to three-fifths. It failed.

Had that been in place the last 10 years, Croke Park would have been open at the first time of asking in 2001 and last year’s disciplinary experiments would also have been given the green light.

“Three-fifths means that there is only 18 needed out of every 30 rather than 20 out of every 30,” said Burns.

“You need two people less in every 30 people voting and I would strongly advocate that. We are victims to a third of the people who decide that they don’t want change or people who just abstain. I enjoy Congress. It is a very democratic model and it is the way to go but there were a few (rejections) I was disappointed with.”