Barry Kelly: 'It's good for hurling that football will be the rule change guinea pig'

Referee Barry Kelly during the GAA Hurling All-Ireland Senior Championship Semi-Final match between Galway and Tipperary at Croke Park in Dublin. 

Four-time All-Ireland SHC final referee Barry Kelly says hurling should wait and see what the upcoming rule changes work for football before implementing them.

Among the Football Review Committee (FRC) long-list of considerations is the clock/hooter which, if they recommend in their final list of enhancements, former GAA president Nickey Brennan believes would have to come in for hurling too.

A member of the referees development committee, Kelly was impressed by a recent FRC presentation given by chairman Jim Gavin. The Westmeath man sees the idea of bringing the ball forward 50 metres for dissent and other disciplinary measures working in hurling.

However, he believes hurling must take a wait-and-see approach before implementing any football-orientated ideas. “It’s good for hurling in the sense that football will be the guinea pig in a way and we can how the rule changes work and hurling can take and leave what it wants.

“The clock/hooter, I’m not sure there is a need for it. There are about seven extra minutes per match and you couldn’t say anyone is playing for draws and I’ve seen it in the ladies (football) game in the past where it has been very anti-climactic.” 

Brennan can’t see the two codes timed differently, Gaelic football perhaps subject to a countdown clock while hurling’s seconds and minutes would be counted up. “If the hooter comes in for the football championship, you’d have to be consistent and have it for the hurling championship.

Former GAA president Nickey Brennan

“But then does it come in for the leagues and will it be there for all the leagues and does it come in at club level? There’s a practicality to all of this.” Kelly was at the FRC’s “sandbox” game in Mullingar where he said the tap-and-go worked “brilliantly”. That wouldn’t be as substantial a rule change in hurling but there are ideas that can work in the smaller ball game, he feels.

“A free being made into an almost guaranteed scoreable free for a cynical foul or dissent is worth thinking about. That would concentrate a fella’s mind if he makes a foul on the opposition’s 20m line and it turns into a free at the other end of the field.” 

Brennan isn’t so sure the overtime showdown the FRC are considering could translate to hurling especially if one team “has a strong wind and the other team don’t have that luxury.” Soon after the previous FRC led by the late Eugene McGee delivered their recommendations, then GAA president Liam O’Neill in 2014 established the Hurling 2020 committee headed up by Liam Sheedy. Brennan sees no harm in hurling rules being reviewed.

“There are differences between the games and it might be no harm for hurling to be looked at. For example, why can’t the idea of two points for a pointed lineball be revisited? If Gaelic football’s goal goes to four points, then why not?

“I’m not suggesting the goal become four points in hurling but it is more of an impactful score as four points in football. If hurling can be tweaked, I don’t have any problem with that at all.”