Conor McManus backs jersey-pull black card rule that tidies up loophole
NEW RULE: Monaghan great Conor McManus has welcomed the new rule making a jersey pull one of the prescribed goal-scoring opportunity denying offences. Picture: ©INPHO/Evan Logan
Monaghan great Conor McManus has welcomed the new rule making a jersey pull one of the prescribed goal-scoring opportunity denying offences.
The infringement has been added to the list of fouls that if committed in preventing a goal opening will result in the defending player being black carded and his team conceding a penalty kick.
Although it has been described by Wicklow manager Oisín McConville as “nonsense”, McManus understands the merit in it. “You see the black card and the deliberate pull-down and then there was a way around it whereby you pulled but you stayed on your feet. So, I think they're just trying to box that off.
“By the letter of the law, it probably is still a cynical foul and still cynical play. So, if it's coming in, it's just going to tidy up that loophole that was there already. To me, a cynical foul is still a cynical foul. And if it means that, well, I think it will help the game again."
What McManus isn’t so certain about is the decision to end each half with the hooter. Previously, teams could play after it sounded until the ball went dead.
“I probably would be in favour of leaving it the way it was. I don't see a massive disadvantage in how it was. I think the hooter going could just spell a very sudden and definitive end to the game. I think it was no harm the way it was.
“But there seems to be a lot of tinkering with rules and that over the last number of years. I don't think you could question the powers-that-be at the minute because they've done such a good job in changing the rules last year."
McManus’s old county team-mate Rory Beggan’s influence was there for everyone to see last season as the goalkeeper kicked 56 points, 54 from placed balls, and scored the most two-pointers in the championship with 24.
By not giving up long-range frees and stifling his forays forward, St Brigid’s were able to curb Beggan in their All-Ireland semi-final win over Scotstown earlier this month but McManus doesn’t expect Beggan will be nullified too often.
“We've seen it with the club this year in Scotstown, we've seen it with Monaghan coming up setting up scores, taking scores from play.
“Like, he’s become more influential as time has gone on. Teams probably won't allow Rory to come up and dictate the game the way he did, so that that will obviously be a big part of any management team that are playing against Monaghan.
“But I don't expect him to sit back and just accept that. I would expect him to try and have the same influence that he has had in the past 12 months.”
Marking their return to the top-flight, Monaghan entertain Armagh in Clones on Sunday. McManus applauds how manager Gabriel Bannigan has embraced youth.
“We had spent 10 years in Division 1. We went down and came straight back up. I think that shows that there is a consistent level of work that has gone on within Monaghan county over the past 20 years.
“We've seen the fruits of that in you feel you're consistently competing at that level and trying to push Monaghan football as best you can. We've had good joy with development squads, minor squads, and U20 squads, things like that. You're just all the time looking to add to that, to bring new blood in, and in fairness to the management team there at the minute, they've brought a lot of new blood in this year.”
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