The FRC defence of handing the ball back: ‘The difference it has made is phenomenal’

Speaking on the Irish Examiner’s Gaelic football show, Football Review Committee member James Horan did have sympathy for the Barrs.

DINGLE ALL THE WAY: Dingle's Conor Geaney with the winning score. Pic: ©INPHO/James Lawlor.

Despite the controversial conclusion to the Munster SFC club final, the rule that a player must hand the ball directly to their nearest opponent on the full has been a positive one for Gaelic football, according to James Horan.

Dingle triumphed thanks to Conor Geaney’s late two-pointer came after the ball was advanced 50 metres by referee Chris Maguire.

St Finbarr’s substitute Dylan Quinn was adjudged not to have handed the ball back.

Speaking on the Irish Examiner’s Gaelic football show, Football Review Committee member Horan did have sympathy for the Cork champions who he believed should have originally had a free for a foul on Ian Maguire.

“You have to go wider with the context,” he said.

“Was it a foot block on Paul Geaney? Stephen Sherlock’s two point from for a foul that was inside the 20m line but came out for a two-point free… If you go back, a decision at the end of a close game is always dramatic and awful. But other decisions are in theory equally important. That just adds to the emotion and debate.

“I think Mark O’Connor fouls him. I thought there would be a free there. Maybe Ian Maguire looked for it a little early because a free there and it is all over. I do think he was fouled. To me, it is a free to St Finbarr’s.

"That is the debate I would have. Whether you like the 50m rule or not is sort of irrelevant. It is what we have and by the letter of the law, the first player to pick up the ball, his first mistake was to pick up the ball.”

Horan continued: “He held onto it and pushed it out ahead of him past the first guy that was coming towards him. Technically, the ref was correct to give that 50 metres.

"It is the cruellest way and your natural feeling is that a game shouldn’t be decided that way. That is the rules as we have them. I think the debate is which way that initial free should have gone.”

The former Mayo manager defended the new rule as a necessary component of the bid to clean up certain elements of the game.

“I think the difference it has made is phenomenal to the game. We had a cantankerous game, cantankerous players, sidelines, everything, cards being dished out. If you look across the suite of discipline enhancements that were brought in, this is a major one, I do think it has made a phenomenal difference to the game.

“Cleaning up the game, the flow to the game, players respect for refs and other players. The GAA has a problem with refs and getting enough of them. This and all of them have helped with all of that.

“The amount of debate we had, a lot of debate went through the different games, the sandbox games, all those different things.

"Absolutely initially, even if you go back to the league games at the start, it was farcical the amount of frees given and what it did to games.

"It destroyed some games. It has settled down now. Yes, it is very penal but that is one of the key tenets of it. It has added to the game, we have a very different game now.”