Niall Morgan: 'I genuinely don't see where you would get any enjoyment out of playing that role'

Niall Morgan urges FRC to let the current rules run and that restricting goalkeepers movement would take away the joy of the game for him.

THRIVING: Tyrone goalkeeper Niall Morgan is thriving under the new rules. Pic: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile

All-Star Tyrone goalkeeper Niall Morgan has revealed that his GPS stats have shot up under the new rules and that he now covers over 10 kilometres on matchdays.

Those figures have traditionally been reserved for hard working middle-third players but Morgan said that his distance covered per game this season has skyrocketed and that his 'high speed running' numbers have quadrupled.

He performed his sweeper 'keeper routine again last weekend in the National League, scoring two points from play against Mayo and even taking a shot at goal.

As for talk of tweaking the rules to curtail goalkeepers, and to prevent them from giving their teams a 12 v 11 numerical advantage when attacking, Morgan said this would be a 'massive step backwards' which would strip 'any enjoying out of playing' for him.

The 33-year-old said he's operated as a sweeper 'keeper since first playing adult club football at 17 and claimed that any limits placed on 'keepers now would only be 'taking away an advantage that the likes of Tyrone, Monaghan and Armagh have on other teams'.

Underlining just how much work he now gets through in a game, Morgan compared his GPS figures from last June's All-Ireland SFC group stage encounter with Cork to last month's Division 1 opener against Derry.

"Against Cork last year in the Championship, I would have thought that I came out (of goals) a lot but against Derry I did three kilometres more in the game and my high speed running was about four times what it was last year," said Morgan, who is regularly referenced in discussions around the new rules devised by Jim Gavin's Football Review Committee.

"So last year, as much as you were coming out, it was a lot slower and it was nearly like, as Jim Gavin made sure everybody saw, me walking out with the ball, whereas now to get the ball I have to go up as far as half way and every return is 140 metres basically, never mind what I do when I'm up there. Every kick-out is 20 metres out and 20 metres back. So it does start adding up. Including the warm up, against Derry there was over 10 kilometres."

Morgan is thriving under the new rules though the landscape for goalkeepers will look a lot different if the FRC considers that their influence on games is too great, or unfair. Various commentators have called for the FRC to curtail goalkeepers and to restrict them to receiving passes inside their own area.

Morgan urged the FRC to 'let it run' and not to 'make judgements off three games in the middle of winter' where 'gale force winds' are at play.

"It would not be my role anymore," said Morgan of potentially being restricted to his goal line. "I genuinely don't see where you would get any enjoyment out of playing that role. At the end of the day, the game has developed so much. It has moved forward and I think making a drastic change like that would just pull it back so much."

GPA co-chair Morgan said that if teams start pressing the opposition more, goalkeepers will be forced to stay at home anyhow.

"If teams would tackle the way the rules were designed to get them to, to tackle high, I don't think the 'keeper would really have the same time or courage to go up," he said. "It sort of happened in the second-half against Armagh (in Round 2), where they did come out and tackle a little bit more. In the back of my head, I was thinking, 'If I take the risk and go up the field here, am I going to get back in time?'"

Morgan also raised the possibility of teams, who are defending a 12 v 11 overload, cancelling out the opposition's numerical advantage by bringing their own goalkeeper out, making it 12 v 12 though leaving their net unguarded.

"A friend of mine keeps texting me saying, 'When is the team that's defending going to push their 'keeper out?'" said Morgan. "They'd be saying, 'You're going to have to go for goal from 60 metres out because we're going to press you that high'."

Morgan said talk generally of a '12 v 11 rule' has frustrated him too.

"For starters, it's not a rule that the 'keeper has to come up," he said. "And it's also 12 v 12. It's no different to last year when it was 15 v 15. Now that the teams are leaving three up and three back, now magically a player on the team is disappearing?"

Morgan said his big fear is that other sweeper 'keepers, and youngsters who are attracted to the role, will simply give up if the rules are changed.

"If they stop the goalkeeper from going forward altogether, there's going to be a number of goalkeepers would walk away," he predicted.