Armagh hero Grugan off to France to teach the natives football

Rory Grugan will spend 10 weeks in France coaching Gaelic football in the native tongue.

Bon Voyage: Armagh footballer Rory Grugan will spend 10 weeks coaching Gaelic football across France as part of a novel project led by Gaelic Games Europe, and supported by the GPA, Kingspan, and McKvr.

Armagh All-Ireland winner Rory Grugan favours getting rid of two-point frees and use of the clock/hooter.

Speaking ahead of this weekend’s Special Congress, where the FRC’s suite of rule changes will be voted on, Armagh forward Grugan also stated his preference for the advantage rule to return to its previous incarnation of having a five-second limit.

The advantage rule going before delegates at Special Congress states that the referee shall allow the advantage to run “until it becomes clear that no advantage has accrued”.

The All-Star nominee believes this rule change, and how it was applied during the 2025 season, to be “wishy-washy”, “nonsensical”, and in need of “cleaning up”.

“Clarification over next phase advantage is required because if there’s a foul given against your team in the middle third, 15 seconds later the opposition could lose the ball and it’s brought back for the free. You just feel like there’s unlimited time to work a score, and no matter what, you are getting another chance,” said Grugan.

“I think they had it right with the five seconds. Five long seconds is a chance for someone to communicate behind you to take the shot or work your shot, knowing that if you work the shot within the five seconds and miss, you get it back, but if you don’t, it's just next phase play, you're still in possession, and you don't get this feeling of unlimited time.

“As it is now, it is very ambiguous. I find myself watching games being frustrated by it, and that is just as a neutral, never mind when you’re playing.” 

Looking elsewhere through the rule changes, the All-Ireland winning forward is opposed to two-point frees, except in cases of dissent where the free has been brought forward 50 metres and the placed-ball kicker has elected to bring the advanced free back outside the arc.

“I don't know whether it's just recency bias where you're watching club football, on club pitches, there's a big wind, and you're seeing these two-point frees go comfortably over. It's just too much reward for the skill that is there.

“And I get why they're trying to do it, to incentivise long-distance shooting, and also trying to make teams push out, but the two-point free is worth looking at.” 

Also worth revisiting, continues the 34-year-old, is use of the clock/hooter. Grugan’s preference is to return to the previous timekeeping practice where injury-time was added at the referee’s discretion.

He hasn’t enjoyed the spectacle of teams running down the clock at the end of either half and also questioned if the clock/hooter timekeeping system should be retained when it hasn’t been universally applied at club and inter-county level.

“The way we've been stung over the years late in games with stoppage time running over longer than it should have, I should be an advocate of the hooter, but there’s something in the jeopardy of having an idea of the minimum amount of time added on while still having to play without the absolute certainty of it's about to go.

“The fact that it's not able to be implemented across the board says it all really, so it is maybe something we could get rid of.” 

Grugan was speaking to the Irish Examiner to signpost his involvement in a new pilot programme, led by Gaelic Games Europe, where he’ll spend 10 weeks in France coaching Gaelic football in the native tongue.

The secondary school French teacher, who is currently on a year’s career break from his post at St McCartan’s College, Monaghan, begins the coaching role on October 14 and will be spreading the Gaelic football gospel across Brittany, Paris, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Lyon, Lille, and Strasbourg. Luxembourg, too, will be paid a visit on the coaching trail.

There are 34 GAA clubs in France at present, comprising 1,300 players, of which 90% are French natives. As well as working in these clubs to help grow the game and the numbers playing it, Grugan’s coaching will also extend to the school setting.

“There are four strands to it, you've got younger and older students in schools, and then young people and adults in the clubs,” he explained.

“You would like to think that you're going to have people in the school setting who won't have done it that much, who maybe then could go and join their local club from this initiative, so that's the idea behind it. The clubs are fairly set in stone, that environment is already there, but the school visits are where there's scope to add to it, to bring more people in.

“The other side of it is my own personal, professional development as a French secondary school teacher. To get this opportunity to be over there immersed in the French language, which I haven't been in so long, and to do so in the context of coaching Gaelic football, encompassing all that I'm most passionate about, it's just a brilliant opportunity for me, linguistically and otherwise.” 

What he hopes to achieve by the end of the 10 weeks is a lasting local imprint that will encourage this pilot programme, in future years, to be rolled out in other European countries.

“I love the thought of the end goal being where this can happen in other countries. That if this is successful, a student who is studying Spanish, Portuguese, or whatever, can do this type of thing in other European countries, and it be GPA-funded or an Erasmus-funded scholarship.

“We are trying to do something that's never been done. So maybe down the line you can look back and say, that's the legacy of me doing this, this programme being subsequently rolled out elsewhere.”