'It was high time to introduce integrity to timekeeping' - Special Congress back clock-hooter

The result of the voting on motions 55-56 regarding the public clock and hooter is shown on a big screen. Pic: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile.

The clock-hooter was Colm Collins’s baby. When a question about it was asked, his smiling Football Review Committee (FRC) colleagues were quick to let the former Clare manager field it.

On Saturday, just over two-thirds (67%) of Special Congress backed its introduction on a permanent basis, 7% or roughly 16 delegates more than was required for it pass. In contrast, the other 15 votes all received over 90% support.

Galway chairman Paul Bellew spoke about the logistical difficulties of the mechanism applying it to club level and the set piece element the end of halves had taken on because of the clock-hooter, while Kildare vice-chairman Larry Curtin spoke of the cost installing the technology across the board.

As was the case when he manned the sideline, the margin of victory didn’t matter to Collins but the result. It will be up to Central Council to decide if the hooter confirms the end of a half as the FRC are proposing.

Explaining his rationale for pursuing its implementation, he referred to the timekeeping issue that affected his county’s hurlers in the 1998 All-Ireland semi-final against Offaly.

“I think that the fact that another unit of the organisation (ladies football) had this system in place and it was proven to work was the underlying thing.

"The point was made during the week that David Clifford's marvellous point (in the All-Ireland final) won't occur. It will occur, except that it will be like a basketball match. He has to get that shot off before the buzzer goes, and that will be just as exciting.

A general view of the timing hooter. Pic: Piaras Ó Mídheach / SPORTSFILE

“I think it was high time to introduce integrity to our timekeeping in the GAA. As someone that's from a county that lost possibly an All-Ireland over this, over human error, I think the hooter was very important.

"This, as you are all well aware, has been passed before, so the objective today was to get them over the line. Whether the majority was 95% or 67%, let's hopefully hope that this is introduced in full everywhere.”

Along with the 50-metre advancement of a free for dissent, Collins believes the clock-hooter has eradicated some of the unseemly parts of Gaelic football.

“One of the important things when we were looking at everything was to make the game an attractive spectacle for everybody.

“We've all been at matches where somebody throws a strop, a player throws a strop and you're there and you're watching him throwing his toys out of the pram and you're saying, ‘God I didn't come here to watch this.’ So that was eliminated completely with the 50m advancement, it was like a magic wand.

“And I think, in relation to the hooter, the other thing that used to really annoy supporters was a person going down who was genuinely not injured just to run down the clock. That's gone. So if a fella's down injured now, he's injured because the clock has stopped.”

Éamonn Fitzmaurice appreciated the patience shown by the football fraternity towards the rule changes. The FRC have made another 19 recommendations that they have asked GAA to consider but they didn’t want to bombard teams, officials and supporters.

“All of the (non-motion) recommendations, the fact we put them in meant we think that there's merit in them,” said the 2014 All-Ireland SFC winning manager.

“They hadn't been road-tested, a lot of the football side ones, and we felt that we'd had a season to test things and then to be dropping in new things, even though we do feel there's huge merit in a lot of the football-related recommendations there.

“We're conscious as well that we don't want the rules fatigue to be there. We've all gone through a season now where we've experimented. People have been very patient with us and with the game. There was changes throughout the season.

“Our brief was to try and make it as good as possible, and that's what we were doing. But I could understand being on the other side of the fence and seeing things being adjusted as a player or a manager, how that would have been frustrating.”

Former Mayo manager James Horan took plenty from the experience but admitted some of it was trying. “Everyone having that agenda and working towards that, it was a privilege to be part of it, it genuinely was.

“Now there were weeks and meetings we spent looking through a rulebook that I wouldn't wish on anyone, to be honest, but outside of that, it was just genuine people that wanted to help the game that we love.”

FRC member and Westmeath operations manager Patrick Doherty conceded the four-point goal was immediately “knocked on the head” by the deluge of Connacht goals against Leinster in their interprovincial semi-final played under the experimental rules 12 months ago.

As for curbing the hand-pass, it came too late in the day, he said. “The very last sandbox game we had, which was probably six or eight weeks ago now, (it) was one of the things that we did try. But that was the only time we tried it.”