Match clock time-wasting concern

The introduction of the clock/hooter for this year’s senior championships could cause major difficulties, warns Páraic Duffy.

The GAA director general said it is a concern of his as well as others at Management Committee and Central Council level that it could be used to waste time. The Football Review Committee proposal, which was backed by 69% of delegates at last year’s Congress, will see, as well as a hooter signalling full time, a match clock stopped for injuries and other deliberate or incidental delays by order of the referee in football and hurling. Duffy sees injuries as the only likely incidents that can be considered as such delays and fears teams may use frees and sidelines kicks and pucks as well as substitutions to run down the clock at the end of games.

Duffy wrote on his report: “There is a concern that teams will consider the penalty of a ‘hop ball’ a small price to pay for wasting time. The other concern is that teams will resort to ‘keep-ball’ hand-passing to run down the clock. I will not be surprised if these emerge as issues of concern during the first year of the use of the clock-hooter system.”