Tyrone's Niall Morgan: 'Very small element of skill' involved in long kick-outs now 

Morgan misses being a maverick and nods enthusiastically when you mention Kieran McGeeney's comment about kick-outs being dumbed down now to sheer 'piggery'.

Gaelic Players Association Media Event on the Publications of The Playbook 2026-2028, Clayton Hotel, Dublin Airport 19/2/2026

For a while at the start of 2025, there was talk of curtailing goalkeepers to the extent that they wouldn't be allowed outside their large rectangle.

The FRC stopped short of pushing that nuclear button, instead preventing goalkeepers from receiving a pass inside their own half, to address the 12 v 11 numerical advantage that teams with sweeper 'keepers like Tyrone's Niall Morgan regularly enjoyed.

But what if they had clipped Morgan's wings and restricted him solely to back of house goal-line duties, would he have quit?

"If they had full-on gone to...like there was that talk that goalkeepers were going to have to stay in the box and that sort of stuff, I definitely think that would have probably pushed me over the edge," nodded Morgan.

That he's still around and likely to start again for Tyrone against Louth in Ardee tomorrow isn't necessarily an endorsement by Morgan of the present rules.

Threading short kick-outs through the eye of the needle and bombing forward to create, and sometimes finish off, attacks was a huge part of his game, and of his value to Tyrone. 

It made him a household name and helped him become an All-Ireland medal winner. He misses being a maverick and nods enthusiastically when you mention Kieran McGeeney's comment about kick-outs being dumbed down now to sheer 'piggery'.

"I completely agree with him," said Morgan. "There was a study done that showed that there was, I think, a 40 percent difference in the amount of space between the 20 and the 45 now, compared to what it used to be. So now there's only like nine percent of the space available to hit a kick-out to, in comparison to whatever it was."

Hence the ignorance, or the piggery, of the long kick-out to heavily contested zones.

"There's a very small element of skill and a very large element of who is going to throw their body in (for a break) now," said Morgan.

So is his role, and the role of goalies generally, as important now as it was two years ago?

"No, definitely not," said the 34-year-old. "It has definitely diminished."

Already the memory of Morgan and Rory Beggan meeting at midfield in a game seems to belong to a bygone era.

"Probably at some stage in years ahead of us, people will watch back the likes of that and think, 'What was going on there? Why were the goalkeepers doing that?'" said Morgan.

As curious and odd as it was, Morgan loved it.

"There were times where you were genuinely going into games thinking, 'Right, you can be the real difference in this game'," said the Edendork man.

"Whereas now...well, you can still be the difference, I suppose, if you make a save or grab a high ball. But it has been taken away, you're probably left with Rory probably being the only one that's the real sort of game changer in what he brings in terms of his free kicks, because he is so accurate, and they are so willing to get him involved in the play too."