Kildare captain Kevin Feely reinvigorated by football's new rules

Contesting kick-outs is Feely's favourite part of Gaelic football. The sport's recently enacted new rules means contests have increased from three or four a game to 30

Kevin Feely makes no secret of the fact that but for the changes to the rules of Gaelic football he might be sitting in the stand in Newbridge this Sunday.

Turning 34 in August, the Kildare captain is the most senior player in the panel by three years. In recent months, he’s seen half a dozen players, including younger club and county team-mates David Hyland and Niall Kelly retire, but he has been reinvigorated by the alterations.

“That (retirement) came into my head probably two years ago before the new rules came in. I would have been thinking some way along them terms but then I got a good boost from the new rules coming in and thinking I might still have a part to play with this.

“And then off the back of a bit of success last year and the opportunity to play Division 2 and Sam Maguire one more year, definitely all those things made the books balance a lot more in favour of staying on.

“There were small thoughts about it but off the back of how well last year went, off the back of how well the club went and how good I was feeling physically, it was an easy decision to come back.”

Indeed, Athy’s county success and journey to a Leinster final was another reason that propelled Feely but he illuminates talking about the increased number of contested kick-outs.

“You went from a point where you maybe were contesting three, four kick-outs a game to 30 now. More often than not, kick-outs are coming long. It's my favourite part of the game and I feel like I have plenty to offer in that regard and then the change to a slightly more hectic game.

“The transitions are quicker, there's more opportunity to move the ball quickly, you need link players in around the middle of the field, which you didn't necessarily need with the old rules because the build-up play was so slow.

“You were coming up the field uncontested whereas now you're being pressed and you need to have options in the middle to link the play.

“Basically, all the stuff that I would have grown up with when I came into senior football initially and that I would have loved about the game so they were all big turning points.” 

Feely admits more might have to be done to protect jumpers. “They maybe need to have a look at that and change some wording around what constitutes a screen or a block and what is allowed and isn't allowed, I know in Aussie rules there's some level of shepherding and blocking allowed but they have wording that separates a foul from not a foul.” 

Kildare have Sam Maguire Cup football already secured by virtue of their Tailteann Cup win last year but they go into Sunday’s Leinster quarter-final against Laois at a low ebb following their demotion to Division 3.

The inexperience of the panel came back to bite them over the spring after the defeat to Derry, Feely felt. “It just seemed to knock the confidence of the group completely for the next two or three games.

“I suppose you really felt how young of a group it was then and they say confidence in youth is fairly fragile. It can either be sky high or the other way and we learned that lesson fairly harshly midway through the league and weren't able to turn it around quickly enough.”