A first look at hurling’s new trial rules: more midfield rucks, fewer handpasses and no increase in high fielding

On a washout week for many fixtures around the country, it rained down sliotars at Belfield on Tuesday night as the GAA’s experimental hurling rules continued to be trialled.

The Freshers league game between UCD and Maynooth University produced 56 puckouts – 55 of which were sent long to the middle of the field. Several clean catches were made, but mostly the ball was broken down and players found themselves engaging in continuous loops of rucks and rolling mauls.

Long puckouts – it’s a brave new world trying to resurrect a feature from the old one.

There are two trial rules, instigated by the GAA’s Standing Committee on Playing Rules (SCPR), currently being showcased in both hurling and football of the Higher Education’s Freshers 1 Leagues.

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The hurling trial rules are:

1: A puckout must travel beyond the near 45m line before it can be played by another player on the defending team. Penalty – A throw-in on the defender’s 20m line in front of the scoring space.

2: Redefining the handpass, players will now have three options: play the sliotar away with the opposite hand to that holding the ball; play the sliotar away with the original ball-holding hand after bouncing it off the hurl; play the sliotar away with the opposite hand after bouncing it off the hurl. Penalty – free from where the foul occurred.

Having looked at the new football rules last week, The Irish Times went along to see the hurling rules in operation on Tuesday night, where UCD were 6-20 to 1-18 winners over Maynooth.

UCD had 21 puckouts during the game, winning 11 and losing 10. Maynooth had 35 puckouts, winning 10 and losing 25.

In the 2023 Allianz Hurling League, 31 per cent of puckouts were played to a team-mate inside the defensive 45m line. Some 49 per cent of puckouts in this year’s league were uncontested. That figure was 36 per cent in 2018.

Only one puckout on Tuesday night failed to cross the 45m line, an attempted quick restart by UCD towards the end of the first half. As a result, referee Conor Daly threw the ball in on the 20m line but UCD won possession and cleared the danger.

There were four flawed handpasses blown by the referee during the match.

“These lads are coming in from their club teams playing under the old rules, then they come to us to play with the new rules before going back to their clubs again, so it’s tricky for them,” explained Maynooth manager and former Kildare hurler John Doran.

“The fear with the new puckout rule is the other team could pull all their forwards out to midfield and completely clog it up. It does make it a bit of a ruck ball festival out there.”

It was noticeable that after nearly every score or wide, instructions were bellowed in from the sidelines telling players to get outside the 45.

UCD tactically deployed their corner backs to the flanks just outside the 45 on their puckouts, leaving the Maynooth forwards with a decision to make; should they pack the central channel in the middle of the field or follow the corner backs to the wing and deny the UCD goalkeeper the option of a player in space?

Either way, the key to UCD’s success was their ability to drag forwards back to the middle third for Maynooth’s restarts, allowing them to win the majority of the loose ball rucks. Not that the puckout rule is massively popular within the UCD management.

“I think it’s ill-advised and adds nothing,” said UCD coach Shane Stapleton, a two-time All-Ireland senior club winner with Cuala.

“It slows up the game and you are left with all these rucks in the middle of the field. One of the best things in sport is the high press – look at soccer, Guardiola, Klopp, they press really high and it’s exciting because if they turn over possession there’s a goal chance or if the opposition get out they can immediately go on the attack.”

One of the reservations on the data which will be collated from these games relates to its real-world accuracy. By its very nature, Freshers hurling in October is a game of discovery because players are still getting to know each other and coaches haven’t had sufficient time to hone game plans.

Puckout strategies are more likely to be rudimentary and lack the fine-tuning and panache you would expect from a seasoned senior intercounty team.

“A trial situation where you have lads together who don’t know each other, how realistic is it?” asked Stapleton, who also runs the popular OurGame podcast. “Freshers hurling is important for these players, so to be using it for a trial is two fingers to them really.”

Doran believes a tweak requiring a certain number of players to stay inside the 45m line on puckouts could help avoid a plethora of rolling mauls at midfield.

“The GAA’s plan was to encourage more high fielding but you just don’t get that with the amount of bodies pulling back the field,” he said.

“These trial rules aren’t going to be here after the league so there is no point bedding yourself in for a style of play that is not going to be here in three weeks.”

One unintended consequence with the handpass rule was evident in the closing stages of Tuesday’s game when a UCD player burst out with possession, but when he got bottled up the outrushing player was suddenly in a tight, crowded space where it was pretty much impossible for him to free two hands to get a handpass away.

The rules will continue to be trialled over the coming weeks. A report analysing the experiment will be presented to Central Council in January.