Failing to hit the target from 20m

Before last Sunday’s Munster SHC replay between Cork and Waterford, both teams were prevented from going out onto the Semple Stadium field.

Players wanted to see what studs would be appropriate for the surface but by the low gate at the main tunnel entrance they were halted.

The players were told that the pitch could be damaged if 50 players were to go out in their football boots — even though a ladies’ football game between the U21s of Cork and Dublin had just concluded.

This was only the start of a remarkable week for GAA rules and regulations arising out of the subsequent game.

If you have been in a sensory deprivation tank, Cork’s penalty against Waterford was the significant moment, with Waterford keeper Stephen O’Keeffe coming far off his line to block Anthony Nash’s shot.

On Sunday evening The Sunday Game broadcast an interpretation of free-taking offered by the referees’ committee which ran contrary to common sense: namely, that lifting the ball equated striking the ball.

On Monday Croke Park said the rule was “unimplementable”, but clearly this was under the interpretation of lifting equals striking, which had mysteriously appeared the previous day.

In any case, the same day GAA president Liam O’Neill said nothing could be done to change the rules until Congress.

On Tuesday the rules were changed thanks to the GAA’s management committee.

The suggestion that lifting the ball equated striking it was banished, and a direction issued which precluded striking the ball before the 20m line for penalties and barred defenders from coming off their line for such penalties.

Where do you want to start? The hurling championship is now in a before-and-after situation, where the games played until today were governed by one set of rules, while starting tonight, a different set of rules will be used.

This creates a dangerous precedent for future seasons, as there is now a case in GAA law for creating different rules in the middle of a competition.

Last Tuesday we asked how it came to pass that the interpretation of striking had suddenly encapsulated lifting the ball as well, a development which seemed known only to Johnny Ryan, referee of last Sunday’s game.

That particular circle has not yet been squared: how O’Keeffe’s movement off the line was found to be legal when The Sunday Game made inquiries. Perhaps it never will.

There’s an understandable keenness to move on from last weekend, but any inter-county manager worth his salt will be making pointed inquiries of match officials before any other game is played this season: those managers will have to seek to clarify whether or not the rules have been tweaked or massaged before their teams take the field.

Since the new interpretation, with its insistence on striking penalties before the 20m line, became common knowledge it has been pointed out that the situation remains the same for frees which are awarded 21m from goal: nothing has changed there, which makes a nonsense of the recurring calls to bear the health and safety of players in mind.

On that point, Cork’s penalty was won last Sunday when Patrick Cronin was fouled in the small square. He had just taken a shot from about five metres from the goal-line; Cronin didn’t make aperfect connection with the ball, which isn’t to cast aspersion on a terrific O’Keeffe reaction save.

However, Cronin was perfectly entitled to hit the ball as hard as he could, close as he was to the goal.

How can it be so dangerous for players to have an unobstructed view of a shot taken from 14 yards away that we need to change the rules mid-season when it’s entirely legal to hit the ball at the goal with all your force from a distance of two metres?

(Regarding the possible danger to juveniles, a friend offered this obvious solution: just as young kids aren’t allowed to scrummage fully in underage rugby, just stop children below a certain age taking frees from the 20m line.)

There are other side avenues to this affair, such as the identity of the person who wrote the new interpretation, or the unhappiness of the GAA’s management committee with the entire situation.

The GAA often throws up a remarkable summer when the World Cup is on — exhibit A: 1998 — but this summer the association is off to a slow start.