New handpass blame game erupts
Croke Park and provincial chiefs were under siege yesterday with leading managers and players warning that the handpass laws passed at Congress would “destroy the football championship.”
But stunned officials insist the rule will not be revisited and, as the blame game escalated last night, suggested that county boards and team management had been slow in passing on the changes to their players – or had been caught unawares by the changes.
One of the country’s top footballers, Kerry’s Tomás O Sé challenged the GAA last night to point out precisely what was wrong with the handpass that pertained last year.
He questioned the right of delegates at Congress to be fundamentally altering the future of gaelic football without any consultation with those it will affect – the players.
“Look down the road on this: we’re looking at carnage,” O Sé predicted.
“You’re asking a 30-year-old inter-county player to scrap what he’s learned over the past 20 years and learn a new style of handpass days before the start of the Championship.
“This is completely disgraceful, and it’s not a word I use loosely. What was wrong with the handpass from last season? I completely accept that what we would call the old ‘Mikey Sheehy’ pass – a volleyball-type overhand flick from the 80s – should be outlawed. I have no problem with that. But if there is a clear striking motion, then where’s the problem? This ham-fisted attempt to follow up on the experiment in the National League is poorly-timed and poorly thought out.
“And mark my words, it will come back to bite the GAA during the Championship.”
His All-Ireland winning manager Jack O’Connor went further, urging an executive U-turn by director general Páraic Duffy on the Congress decision until it had been properly trialled at the start of the 2011 season.
“I think that this is a flawed process,” O’Connor told Newstalk. “Did people had any idea what they were voting for? There were so many motions for Congress that people probably went through these rules one after the other and had no idea what they were voting on.
“It now requires real leadership up to the GAA President to have another look at this. I really do feel this is going to destroy the Football Championship.
“Can you imagine in an All-Ireland final a critical call going against a team – then you’d see pandemonium. At the top level in Croke Park someone is going to have to take the bull by the horns, show leadership on this and say, look, we’ll defer this until it’s trialled out in the National League, or the secondary competitions. That’s what’s required. “Otherwise chaos will ensue.”
However embattled Croke Park and referees officials put on a united front in defence of the Congress decision, which was brought by the Connacht Council.
Council secretary John Prenty insisted that if counties had been paying closer attention to such decisions, it was a communication cock-up at their end.
“You’d swear this thing came out last Friday,” Prenty pointed out. “Congress was on the 16/17th of April, so counties know about it. If team managers or players have a problem with their county board that’s not my problem. To say that people didn’t know about them means that either they didn’t bother reading them or didn’t take any notice!”
In putting forward the motion at Congress, Council President Paddy Naughton told delegates that it was the ‘over-hand’ problem with hand passing they were trying to eliminate – that the variations of hand-passing had been ‘a bone of contention’ for a long time in terms of what was and was not permitted.
Duffy dismissed any revisit of the Congress decision, stating: “There will be absolutely no rowing back. If teams want referees to go and explain the rules I am quite happy to keep doing that until the penny drops but the rules were approved by Congress and will remain there. The rule is as simple as can be. You can strike the ball with the closed fist or you can strike the ball underhand provided there’s a clear striking action.”
However, Kerry’s Tomás O Sé pointed out the manifest inconsistiences on the first domestic weekend of the Championship. “I have looked at Kieran Donaghy’s pass to Bryan Sheehan for that disallowed goal (in the first half against Tipperary). Was that not a clear striking action? If Donaghy wants a quick lay-off to a forward running through, it’s impossible for that to be underhand. It’s going to have to be sideways as the forward is running past him. This will slow things down, clog them up. It is going to cause nothing but hassle for referees and players.”
Added Donaghy yesterday: “I just think they have to scrap it. I’m telling you, when it comes to games in Croke Park in front of 70 or 80,000 people and this starts, God help them, you’re going to have fans losing the plot.”
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