O’Neill wants penalty rule debated

GAA president Liam O’Neill accepts there are strong grounds to change hurling’s penalty rule — but stresses the debate to alter it had begun long before two more were saved in Sunday’s All-Ireland final.

Not since Joe Canning in the June 22 Leinster semi-final with Galway has a goal come from a penalty in the championship and the conversion rate is now close to 20%.

Those statistics are largely down to a new interpretation of the penalty rule, which states it must be struck before or on the 20m line.

The measure was taken following the drawn Cork-Waterford Munster quarter-final where Stephen O’Keeffe sprinted from his line to block an Anthony Nash penalty, the Corkgoalkeeper having risen and hit the sliotar several metres past the 20m line.

After Seamus Callanan and John O’Dwyer had penalties stopped by Kilkenny goalkeeper Eoin Murphy on Sunday, O’Neill is encouraged by the willingness of people to provide alternatives to the current penalty rule. He claims the discussion had to come from outside Croke Park.

“Had we come out with a recommendation on that at this year’s Congress, people would resist it because it was coming from the top.

“But now the debate is going to happen at grassroots level and I welcome that.

“I’ve looked for debate in the organisation, it’s one of the points of my presidency. I’ve wanted people to have a voice. Central Council has been transformed in that it gets to debate a lot of things and we’ve asked Central Council to come up with suggestions about the issues they want to discuss. That process is there.

“People who say a penalty should be scored are probably right. There’s no doubt about that but let’s talk about it and get an agreement on it.

“Hurling folk have been difficult in accepting change and I said in my speech at Congress that to refuse to consider change is to refuse to consider the chances of improvement.

“So here we have a perfect example of what I was talking about at Congress. I want people to consider change, to discuss it and I want consensus.”

O’Neill credits Dónal Óg Cusack with first coming up with alternatives to the current format of penalties.

“We didn’t change any rule, we just interpreted it. It was always meant that the free be struck at the 20m line. There was no rule change there. It’s important for people to remember that. There was an issue on health and safety grounds.

“The debate about one goalie or one goalie and one defender being on the line started a long time ago and Dónal Óg was the first to say it. Dónal Óg said at a meeting of the standing committee on playing rules that as a goalkeeper he would prefer to be on his own in goals and he has been a proponent of that. Like everything else, I think we have been very open to debate on this. We have a standing committee for hurling and football and we also have the Hurling 2020 group under Liam Sheedy and that’s up for debate. But the debate had started before the All-Ireland final.”

O’Neill also believes Hawk-Eye detractors must now accepts its usefulness after it confirmed O’Dwyer’s late free had gone wide on Sunday, thus forcing a replay.

“Some people took interest that Hawk-Eye called it. The umpire probably knew it was wide but I think he was very wise in the circumstances to call on the back-up of the technology and clear up any doubt.

“That’s the beauty of it. If we hadn’t Hawk-Eye, there would forever be people behind the goals that would say the result should have been different.

“There were people who didn’t agree with it but I’d say after [Sunday] the doubters would have to have changed their minds.”

After the score detection technology’s recalibration difficulty impacted on Limerick’s minor hurlers in last year’s All-Ireland semi-final against Galway, O’Neill was glad to see it make amends on Sunday.

“The hiccup last year was human error and you’ll always have human error. Technology is not a certainty at times either in that it took a while to fine tune Hawk-Eye.

“We took our time on it and we said we would bring it in when we were sure that it worked. I think it certainly did yesterday and lent a great deal of drama to the occasion.”

More drama can be expected in the replay and the GAA have announced stand tickets will be reduced to €50 from €80, a spot on the terrace will cost €25 while children will be entitled to €10 tickets.

Meanwhile, Laois’s Eddie Kinsella will take charge of the Kerry-Donegal All-Ireland SFC final on Sunday week. It is the Courtwood man’s first final appointment having earlier this year taken charge of the All-Ireland senior club decider between St Vincent’s and Castlebar Mitchels.

His last championship game was Kerry’s All-Ireland quarter-final with Galway. His linesmen will be Sligo’s Marty Duffy, who is also standby referee, and Armagh’s Padraig Hughes. Clareman Rory Hickey is the fourth official. Longford’s Fergal Kelly takes charge of the minor final.