Brogan believes furore over new rule will die down

HAND-PASS RULE:AS THE new hand-pass rule comes under scrutiny again this weekend with the first round of the Leinster hurling championship – as in how it will apply to the smaller ball – Dublin football forward Bernard Brogan believes the issue will have died down within weeks as referees become less stringent in applying the new rule.

“I don’t expect there will be a huge focus on it from here on,” says Brogan. “I know it was strict over the weekend. I watched the Kerry game, and there were a good few fouls given for it.

“But I’d say the refs were told to pull it up as often as they saw. I think the first few games it will be shown up a bit, but I think then it will disappear into the background.

“It is hard when you’re hand-passing one way, in the league, and then you have to change it again.

“But I think once you sit down and have the chat about it, do a couple of drills, lads will cop on quickly enough. It would be annoying if it was a crucial score, but after next weekend or so the referees will be a bit more lenient on it, will only pull you up for blatant hand-pass.

“Maybe they were a bit too strict about it over the weekend. I think telling referees and players about it only a couple of weeks ago didn’t help. A different rule in the league, from before. I think once you’ve had one game under your belt you’ll get the hang of it.”

On Saturday evening, the rule will be applied in the Leinster hurling championship opener involving Laois against Carlow – with the winners progressing to play Dublin in the quarter-final on June 6th.

Dublin manager Anthony Daly will thus be watching closely, not only to get a preview of the opposition, but to see exactly how the rule will apply to hurling in the senior championship.

According to the rules circulated earlier this month, the hand-pass rule specific to hurling now states “the ball must be released and struck with a definite striking action of the hand” – although Daly is, not surprisingly, concerned about how this will be interpreted by referees on match day.

“I would have concerns after seeing what happened last Sunday,” he says. “It was crazy watching the Sunday Game, and I don’t think that we ever thought that we would see footballs being thrown around Montrose.

“It is down to interpretation, and anything they could do to speed up Gaelic football I think we should do.

“I think the same applies to hurling. You’re going to have frees stopping a lovely flowing movement, so hopefully there’ll be a bit of common sense.

“I played with Brian Quinn long enough to know that there’s an art to throwing it as well. There’s not as much hand-passing in hurling as in football. It doesn’t happen as often, but there could be a crucial one of a full forward catching the ball, laying it off and a great goal being scored and the ref blowing for it because he wasn’t happy.

“We’ve been working on it, trying to blow fellas when they aren’t doing it right.

“Without stopping a drill, we’ve been saying, ‘hey, that’s not right’. We’ll probably get Eamonn Morris (the Dublin referee) to have a quick chat about one or two little things.

“But there’s no need for it in hurling at all. Why don’t they just leave it alone? It’s a grand game the way it is. A throw is a throw, a hand-pass is a hand-pass. If you spot the throw, blow it.”