Taking the game in a new direction
Keen to get insight from all quarters in Gaelic games, McGee asked his fellow members of the media to contribute their thoughts and ideas on aspects of the game ranging from the club and county structures to the playing rules.
It was an opportunity not to be missed, certainly not when the FRC is an independent body, although Declan Darcy has since become a Dublin selector.
It’s this writer’s belief that the games of football and hurling are not properly served by a standing playing rules committee when some members could be charged with having vested interests as they remain at the coalface of each sport.
After countless meetings and hours of wading through questionnaires, letters and emails (like mine), McGee’s group, given the autonomy by its creator GAA president Liam O’Neill, will soon deliver a set of recommendations to the Laois man on which a national debate will be waged before being voted on.
A new All-Ireland SFC structure is expected, something much-maligned clubs pray has their own interests at heart considering how much they have been held hostages to the whims of the inter-county game.
In my submission, I drew attention to former GAA president Seán Kelly’s Championship restructuring proposal, which was published in these pages in August.
Kelly calls for the leagues and the provincial championships to be used as a basis for a 16-team All-Ireland series.
However, I also put forward a more radical scheme of my own, primarily based on the provincial structure but dividing the 32 counties equally into four conferences of eight.
Each conference would be separated randomly into two groups of four with each team facing the other three teams once. The winners of each group then face each other in the divisional final with the four conference winners progressing to the All-Ireland preliminary quarter-finals where the two winners would qualify for the All-Ireland semi-finals.
The eight second-placed divisional group teams go into a draw facing one another with the four victors facing the four divisional final runners-up.
The four surviving teams would be drawn to face each other with the two teams playing the preliminary quarter-final losers to see who fills the remaining two spots in the All-Ireland semi-finals.
In all, the championship, excluding replays, would involve approximately 69 games — just nine more than the 60 in the current format and yet enough to satisfy the need for more top level football action.
Each county team would be guaranteed at least three games (one more and over a shorter time-span than they are currently) while a more definite structure would allow clubs to plan their fixtures with purpose.
The success of the Heineken Cup is down to several factors but one of them is certainly the public’s familiarity with the four rounds before Christmas and two in January. Give people a competition they can set their clock by and they’ll be grateful for it.
As would the clubs, in the GAA’s case.
However, there doesn’t appear to be a huge appetite in Croke Park for change to the current championship system, certainly not a move away from the provinces, which is understandable given its rich heritage.
As well as that, condensing the five-month period of the All-Ireland SFC would prove problematic for the GAA when it would impact on the game’s profile.
However, there would appear to be an acceptance in the corridors of power that the game of Gaelic football needs a tune-up.
In my submission, I made six proposals, three which relate to curbing the cynicism that permeates the game.
I stressed the ugliness now seen in matches is directly proportional to the prevalence of the handpass. With more of a premium put on possession, so too have players become bigger and stronger. Without a properly defined tackle, it has led to mass confusion about exactly what constitutes a legitimate challenge and a foul.
Rather than limiting the number of handpasses which would only encourage defences to bolster so as to pressurise the team in possession, I suggested incentivising the kick-pass. The idea is open to implication but making a point worth twice its value if the move included two kick-passes might be one way of being proactive on the subject.
It would also reward one of the core skills of the game. The mark has also been mentioned but without stern punishment for any defending team not falling back from the marker, it would be redundant.
What looks almost certain to return in the form of a recommendation — and which this writer fully agrees — is the sin bin.
Team fouls have never been as common as they are now in top level Gaelic football with sides now immersed in systematic illegitimate tackling so as to ensure neither the opponents get into scoring areas nor that the fouling rests on a few pairs of shoulders and risks sendings off.
In this year’s All-Ireland qualifiers, Kerry and Westmeath gave away a combined total of 53 frees, almost two fouls for every starting player, yet no-one was dismissed.
In a fourth-round game against Meath, Laois committed 30 fouls, two for each of their starting 15, and they too survived the 70 minutes with their full complement.
Cumulative yellow cards is another worthwhile measure. In these pages, Pat McEnaney made the suggestion that three yellow cards in a championship should count as an automatic one-match suspension.
He made the exception of the All-Ireland semi-finals when all yellow cards should be wiped out but wouldn’t that only lend to the long-held view that referees are more lenient in those two games? If the sin-bin would punish the offending team then the cumulative rule would exist to punish the offending player.
A practical advantage rule, also outlined by McEnaney, is an entirely applaudable idea, giving the fouled player the benefit of three to five seconds of grace to attempt to play the ball before the referee calls back the play to award a free.
Like in hurling, teams are exploiting the absence of the advantage. Another defending player avails of the opportunity created by the foul to pressurise the fouled player, often resulting in a turnover or a free given the other way. It makes a mockery of the positivity the referee is attempting to transmit.
Banning the fisted point may appear to be a prohibitive course of action but the score involves little in the way of genuine cleverness or ability. If we want to bring the foot back into football, insisting that every point be kicked is a positive way of doing that.
Lastly, Mick O’Dwyer’s long-held view that the pick-up should be eliminated from the game is worthy of consideration. Put simply, it’s not a skill that would be missed and its absence would not only make life easier on referees but help to speed up the game.
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