Paul Keane: New rule fails to make its mark on first outing

It was difficult not to be reminded of Sean Cavanagh’s disquieting assessment of the new ‘mark’ rule last November while talking to Tomás Quinn after Sunday’s annual Dubs Stars challenge.

“I am at a loss as to how exactly it is all going to play out but it does frighten me to a certain extent because it is a pretty significant change,” said Tyrone talisman Cavanagh about the new rule.

The first official mark in Gaelic games was finally claimed on Sunday last, January 1, just yards away from Quinn by rookie Dublin defender Ryan Deegan who fielded cleanly from a kick-out that travelled beyond the 45m line.

It happened in the 23rd minute of the game and, if Quinn is entirely honest, it was only around 24 minutes earlier that he remembered the rule was actually in operation following a stadium announcement.

The former Dublin attacker, who is gearing up for an AIB All-Ireland club semi-final with St Vincent’s, went on to score 3-5 and didn’t feel too foolish afterwards about forgetting about the mark’s introduction.

That’s because while there were about half a dozen awarded in total, it had little or no impact on the game generally, just as he suspected.

Far from the spoiling tactics to counter clean catching, as predicted by Cavanagh, it was hard to notice any discernible difference in the game, with several players continuing as normal despite the option to claim a mark.

Of course, things may change when players become more familiar with the rule and when managers, through a process of trial and error, realise how it might be of value to them though Quinn isn’t convinced.

“To be honest, when you heard the whistle, my instinct was to think ‘what was the foul for?’” said Quinn. “You’re just so used to it (not being there) but it’s something you’ll pick up pretty quick. Generally, I’m not sure how much of an impact it’s going to have. A lot of the keepers went pretty short so there probably was only about three or four of them throughout the game.

“With the calibre of goalkeepers now, the days of just putting the ball down and kicking it out long are gone. I know some traditionalists like to look back and say, ‘it’s going to go back to high fielding’. But you are always going to be trying to pick somebody out or put it into space or into a pocket. I don’t know [if] we are going to see too many guys just putting the ball on the tee and pumping it 60 yards through the air. I don’t know was it [the mark] overly necessary.”

The mark was put on trial during the third-level Division 1 league games throughout autumn and was in operation for December’s Interprovincial football championship though only officially came into rule from January 1, meaning Dublin were the first inter-county team to experience it.

Quinn, who played for Dublin for over a decade, probably wasn’t the only high-profile player who’d forgotten about its introduction last Sunday.

Cavanagh has clearly given it plenty of thought, though many others appear to be happy to simply see how things pan out and let the chips fall where they may. Quinn’s gut feeling is that the mark will have little impact overall.

“My feelings are that a lot of rule changes in the GAA are very reactionary,” he said.

“I’d rather see a rule change where it’s thought out over a couple of years and we ask, ‘what do we want our game to look like? What do we want to do, do we want to speed it up?’ And, if so, how do we want to speed it up?

“Does it mean we bring in a pick-up off the ground like ladies football rather than trying the mark this year and then trying something else in two years? It seems to be always like that rather than having a longer term view.”