Scrambling to sort the mess and deception on Gaelic football's 50m advanced free

If football is to persist with the 50m advancement, a small addendum around the team receiving the ball could help significantly – as in any play-acting or attempts to manipulate the situation in their favour would result in either a hop ball or reversal of the free

FRUSTRATED: Roscommon manager Mark Dowd remonstrates with sideline official Cormac Dineen after the League tie in Killarney: 'Just drop the ball dead (on the ground) - that’s a fairly simple one'. Pic: Tyler Miller/Sportsfile

THERE are good reasons why David Clifford’s looping 18th minute arc from an acutely-angled sideline free for Kerry against Roscommon on Sunday didn’t colonise social media in the way it should have and frequently does.

First, well it’s Clifford. He has made the outrageous vanilla. Second, what should have been a pretty low wattage League opener for the All-Ireland champions turned into anything but. Mark Dowd’s inter-county debut as Rossies manager was a hoot, as the visitors reeled off eight second half points on the bounce to put the biggest shock of the opening weekend in play. 

Tomás Kennedy stirred several new ‘Star’ headlines with his game-winning 1-3 for the Kingdom but the real barn-burner came in the 66th minute when referee Brendan Cawley advanced a Monaghan free 50m for Mike Breen’s foiled bid to hand the ball back to an opponent.

A year ago in Tralee, Jack O’Connor warned that the ‘handing back the ball’ bit of the FRC initiative was a nonsense in waiting and ripe to abuse, since escalating the rule’s unforeseen consequences to a catastrophe. There may be red warnings any moment now.

In this instance, he is in solid ground. As game a defence as Éamonn Fitzmaurice mounted on The Sunday Game (it’s not the rule, it’s the implementation), this episode might prove a tipping point in terms of cracking down on rampant player deception in this area. Note: it will get worse. Had Clifford and Kennedy not retrieved the game for Kerry in the dying moments, it would have cost them two important League points for starters.

Said Kerry manager O’Connor after: “I said from day one, why can't the player just leave the ball down on the ground, where the foul occurs, and back off? Even the very fact of holding the ball out to a fella, he can run into you and, what are you supposed to do? Hand him the ball and vanish at the same time? 

"I've said this from the start, I can't understand how intelligent men allow that rule to go through. And I said this to them from the very beginning, that this rule would cause desperate trouble.” 

Tadhg Morley: 'They just need to tidy up, because it’s too controversial' Pic: Laszlo Geczo, Inpho

Fitzmaurice, part of Jim Gavin’s FRC group, said on RTÉ: “Jack's is a fair point, he's been consistent on it and I'm not saying I'm disagreeing with him. But the thing about it is it was tried for a year last year. It came to Special Congress and there was a vote on it. The first time it came in as a trial, 85 per cent of the people in congress voted for it. It actually went up to 96.3 per cent the second time round...I absolutely get Jack's point when that type of stuff goes on. I'm not going to defend that.” 

He added: “It does come back to the application of the rule. Brendan Cawley is one of the best referees in the country, but he got it wrong today. It shouldn't have been brought up. The ball was slapped out of Mike Breen's hand and brought up the 50 metres, it could have been crucial.” 

Kerry’s Tadhg Morley was a lot closer to the incident than O’Connor whatever of Cawley. He knows when a player is trying it on.

“I think Mike (Breen) was harshly penalised in that moment,” the Templenoe man said. “He tried to hand it back, and I think yer man punched or knocked it out of his hand. What can Mike do? They just need to tidy up, because it’s too controversial.

“You saw it in the club championship games too, like the Barrs-Dingle final, and An Ghaeltacht. Put the ball on the ground? I don’t know, something like that. I’m not sure what the answer is, to be honest but they need to tidy it up some bit anyway. Every team is at it – our own Micheál Burns tried to do it last week against Cork in the McGrath Cup final. Everybody is at it, especially when there is a two-pointer on offer from the free.” 

In Saturday’s Irish Examiner, Fitzmaurice wrote: The 2024/2025 Football Review Committee (FRC) is no more. It has completed its work at the Special Congress in October 2025. It was always a two year gig.

“In the last couple of months I have heard commentary that the FRC need to look at this, or look at that and make adjustments to rules. And they need to do it straight away! People need to realise that ship has sailed. The proposals were overwhelmingly backed. The only one that didn’t have in excess of 90% backing was the stop clock and hooter, which passed with a 67% vote. Every rule that was trialled last year is now permanently in the rule book, with a few minor modifications and a couple of additions.” 

Which is a pity, because if Croke Park is to persist with the 50m advancement, a small addendum around the team (player) receiving the ball could help significantly – as in any play-acting or attempts to manipulate the situation in their favour would result in either a hop ball or reversal of the free.

Roscommon manager wasn't about to complain that a free in their favour was incorrectly advanced, but he said the different interpretations of how the ball is handed over is there for all to seee. "Where teams are maybe trying to find a way of getting a bit of an advantage from it, after they have won a free.

“I have seen a couple of different instances - not today now, but in different games - where you see guys trying to get that ball brought up, which is unfair, and it’s not that the opposition are doing anything to stop it being brought up, or trying to get out of the way. Just drop the ball dead (on the ground) - that’s a fairly simple one."

For the moment, O’Connor and Kerry have more pressing matters, like a trip to Ballyshannon next Sunday to face the beaten All-Ireland finalists. Kerry are a few weeks behind the pack in terms of preparedness, and whatever of getting out of jail against Roscommon, that is unlikely against a McGuinness team with the bit between their teeth.

Said O’Connor: “We had that game won a couple of times and we just kept turning the ball over. It's well known that we have a lot of players coming back late, they're undercooked. I thought we got some of the rust out of us in the McGrath Cup final but Roscommon was up another level. But there'd be a lot of aspects of our games we weren’t happy with. The main one was, I think they kicked something like 1-20 in total. 1-10 of that was from either turnovers or balls kicked short. That's just not in our game plan at all.” 

On Donegal, he smiled: “Sure they’ve hit the ground running, like they always do. Clearly Donegal have a lot more work done than we have, so we'd be well up against them next week and they obviously have the added incentive of trying to get one over us after last year. I saw where Jim [McGuinness] was fine and cranky with the media (on Saturday night), which means he's well up for it again. So that's great. It’ll be a good test of us.”