‘No point’ in banning Nash’s penalty-taking technique

Jimmy Barry-Murphy admits he didn’t see “any great point” to ban Anthony Nash’s penalty-taking technique.

The so-called ‘Nash Motion’, which would have prevented penalty-takers gaining ground by lifting the sliotar forward, was ultimately withdrawn from the Congress agenda on Saturday.

Ironically, Nash was in the stand a few hours later as Laois goalkeeper, Eoin Reilly adopted a similar method in taking his unsuccessful penalty in Saturday’s Allianz League game.

Nash’s spectacular style of penalty-taking had been the subject of much scrutiny since last year’s All-Ireland finals but it will be business as usual for 2014.

“I don’t get too hot about these things” said Barry-Murphy. “Congress and the county board knew about these issues. If it was changed, it was changed. As far as I was concerned I didn’t see any great point in changing it.

“I think if the team that’s attacking gets a penalty, they’re entitled to the advantage that’s going.

In short, there should be a high percentage chance of getting a goal from a penalty. “Exactly, that’s what I’d say. But I’m only an ordinary punter. Whatever Congress decides I’ll go along with it.”

Meanwhile, Laois manager Seamus Plunkett is confident that his charges are continuing to move in the right direction.

“I thought we got a fighting performance tonight, that’s what we looked for” said Plunkett.

“I think the biggest variable was the wind. We probably needed to play with the wind. We needed to take the points into half-time, as such. It’s always difficult to turn around like that.

“Maybe we should have shoved players up the field a little bit earlier but that’s the benefit of hindsight. I was very happy.

“I thought we were very, very competitive all over the field. I thought technically we were on a par with Cork.

” The one area we need to work on is moving the ball out of defence and into the forwards. I think when we get that right we’ll improve.

“So I’m quite happy with the performance and the improvement areas that we need to work on.

” We’ll be looking at those over the next couple of weeks.”