Gooch longing for December’s lull

Colm Cooper, the standout footballer of his generation, has questioned the amount of rules tinkering taking place in Gaelic games at the moment, suggesting that if the current laws were enforced, then most problems would be solved.

In light of the recommendations of the Football Review Committee earlier in the week, the Kerry star did admit that cynicism needed to be tackled as it was a major problem right now. But he warned that any changes must be subject to a trial period before Congress has its say.

“I was reading something in the paper about there being 18 rule changes. I haven’t seen too much of them but 18 seems like a lot, really. In the 11 years I’ve been involved with Kerry, there’s been at least some sort of rule change every year. That’s a lot too. They are trying to make the game a better spectacle and I understand that and there probably is a little bit of cynicism. They are just trying to take the correct measures but they’ve to make sure before implementing these rules, that they experiment with them. You don’t know how they’ll make the game look. They can’t bring them into the game full-time without that. They are trying their best but there is a bit of overkill and if the rules that are there, if it was policed in the right way, I think the players would be happy enough with that.”