You can say this much for the Football Review Committee – it is making sure the whole thing is being given proper attention. You put Jim Gavin in charge of something and straight away, everybody sits up straight in their seats. There’s no sniggering down the back of the class. We’re doing this and we’re doing it right.
I have been around football for long enough to remember when they changed the rules around sideline balls and started letting players take them out of their hands. It was in the early 1990s and Jack O’Shea was playing full-back for Kerry during the league. The main thing that sticks out in my memory is of Jacko running out to take every sideline ball, just so he didn’t have to stick to his position on the edge of the square.
In those days, there was no big consultation when it came to bringing in changes. There was no committee going around the country meeting stakeholders. Nobody had ever heard the word stakeholder, actually. There was no big survey for everyone to fill in. A new rule came in and everyone could like it or lump it.
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That has changed a good bit over the years. On any team I was ever on, as soon as a new rule came in the smart boys in the room would start looking at it for loopholes. How can we get around this one? What have they not thought of? The other shower up the road will be thinking of ways around it so we better come up with something.
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By putting Gavin front and centre, one thing you’re doing is telling all the smart boys that they’re wasting their time. They’re not going to think of anything that Gavin, Eamonn Fitzmaurice, Michael Murphy and all the rest didn’t think of first. The committee is setting out to make the game enjoyable to play and watch. Anybody who revels in the dark arts is being told that Gavin and the boys are coming for them.
The other point about making it such a professional operation is that the whole thing is going to gather a momentum that feels unstoppable. By the time all the trial games are over and it has boiled down to actual proposals to be put before congress, I would make a fair bet that they’ll be voted through in a landslide. The groundwork is being done now so that nothing is left to chance when the time comes.
Don’t underestimate how important that is. Years ago, I was on a previous version of the Football Review Committee, the one that brought in the midfield mark. At the time, some of us wanted to add in a rule that all kick-outs would have to go out past the 45, but we ended up not including it because we couldn’t be sure it would get through congress.
Frank Murphy was on that committee and he told us a story one night about a delegate who was speaking in favour of a rule change. The delegate was doing okay but he made a joke at one stage and stuttered over it, which caused a few giggles and sniggers around the room. This was when you needed a 66 per cent majority to get anything done, and by interrupting his own momentum, the delegate gradually lost the room. The proposed rule change failed by a couple of votes.
The moral of the story is that you can’t be going to congress on a wing and a prayer. And if we know anything about Jim Gavin, it’s that a wing and a prayer isn’t his style. I would be stunned if whatever he and his group end up bringing to congress doesn’t sail through.
As for what that will be, there’s plenty to like in the initial suggestions. More kicking is good – extending the forward mark to kicks that land inside the 20-metre line (as it was supposed to be from the start) would be a step forward. Same with the idea of two points for a kick outside a 40-metre arc – although you might have to include geometry lessons for fellas who line a few of the club pitches I’ve been to.
Some of the ideas still need a bit of work. I like the suggestion of moving the ball up 50 metres for dissent towards referees. There’s far too much bitching aimed at officials. Anybody wondering why there is so much bad refereeing in the game should ask themselves what has made the good referees give up doing it.
But I would use that 50-metre move for other things as well. The big one would be the foul that stops a breakaway after a turnover. So many teams have got so good at this – Dublin and Kerry love a nice tactical foul to get everything reset. This would kill that carry on stone dead.
The other one I’m not so sure about is changing the throw-in to a one-on-one battle, with everyone else outside the 65s. I spent my whole career being in the middle for those throw-ins and I can tell you there were plenty of times I was damn glad of the two extra bodies in that area. Even if they were only wrestling each other, they were an obstacle to absorb the momentum of the players flying in to try and grab the break.
If you leave one player from each team in there, both of them will only have eyes for the ball. You’re leaving them vulnerable to everybody coming bombing in at full pelt from all angles. When the blood is up at the start of a game, that could backfire very easily.
The good thing is, these are all only suggestions at this stage. Everybody will toss them around and look at them from all angles and then they’ll arrive at an idea. The whole exercise is very encouraging and it’s a credit to Jarlath Burns that he has got it going so early in his presidency.
The game has got itself into a state. Finally it feels like someone is taking it seriously.
