For a long time, the GAA used to protest that it was not afraid of change – even when such a claim was plainly risible. A quarter of the way through, this century has been different with an unimaginable rate of reform and experiment.
From the last two of the association’s big cultural prohibitions – on members of the Northern Ireland security forces and the use of GAA property by other sports – to competition structures and playing rules, this has been a breathless 25 years, as explored by Denis Walsh on these pages last week.
[ Unshackled from tradition, the GAA has made change the new normalOpens in new window ]
Maybe the lens needs a different filter. The desire for change within the association always preceded its actual arrival. Repeal of those above-mentioned cultural bans typically needed a few goes before securing the approval of GAA Congress.
Fifty-four years ago, the one that fell in the 20th century – that on ‘foreign games,’ as the shorthand was – had completed a couple of decades of being brought to the floor of congress and in the timeless words of Samuel Beckett, failing again but failing better.
Seán Moran: Hurling may regard the FRC as an irrelevance but history suggests otherwise
Maurice Deegan: Referees benefit from rule changes as football gets faster
Limerick’s Seamus Flanagan may face disciplinary action over alleged incident during Cork game
Friday night lights the one spotlight GAA seems unwilling to step into
It is part of the phenomenon of Jim Gavin’s Football Review Committee that to date it has so adroitly managed to bring both the concept of radical change and the ability to get the regulatory detail accepted by consensus. So far, anyway.
The hurling community may be getting a bit irritated by the unflagging focus on football this season but, as they are quick to remind others, one game has a lot of problems whereas the other doesn’t.
This doesn’t mean that hurling is unaffected by what football does. After the qualifiers were introduced in 2001, there was a clamour to extend the universal second chance to hurling, which happened the following year.
When the first move towards senior All-Ireland round-robin formats and a reduced calendar footprint was made back in 2017, hurling commentators protested that the small-ball game would get squeezed out in the process.
In response to these misgivings, then director general Páraic Duffy issued reassurance that such concerns would be addressed.
“We are very open to looking at the hurling structure, very open. There are actually some good suggestions out there, it’s not for me to put them out here today, but if the hurling community – and this is really important to us – if they wish to look at their championship in terms of the number of games they have and so on then we’ll look at that.”
In what was obviously an impromptu response, a slightly obscure idea, formulated by a previous Hurling Development Committee, was proposed and in September 2017, went to a special congress. There it was opposed by most of the established hurling counties.
Despite that, this serendipitously acquired format, providing round-robin structures in the provincial hurling championship, has proved a conspicuous success, aided by – and possibly promoting – a more competitive field in both Munster and Leinster.
When the black card was brought into football in 2013 to combat cynical fouling, the initial reaction among the hurling community was that their game didn’t really have that problem of calculated rule breaking – an unlikely argument.
Eventually it was imported into hurling for the foul denial of a goal scoring opportunity. Such was the furore when James Owens applied the rule in the 2021 Tipperary-Clare Munster championship match that no referee did so again that summer.
Even as the rule was modified, it still found uneven application but it remains there to protect those with improperly thwarted goal chances. These days it is more common to encounter criticism of failure to apply the rule than insistence that it’s not needed.
It hasn’t been alone in not getting consistent enforcement.
The FRC decided against targeting the hand pass, which is seen by many as a principal problem for football, because its restriction could impact on teams’ ability to attack effectively.
In hurling the same hand pass is a constant source of concern because of its execution. Tipperary All-Ireland winner Conor O’Donovan has been a long time advocating the solution that a valid hand pass should involve an obvious striking action with the other hand, ie the one not holding the sliotar.
This has the virtue of clarity and is tabled for debate at this year’s annual congress but those defending the status quo argue that fast hand movement is intrinsic to how the game is played.
Whereas there is some public disquiet, most appear happy to turn a blind eye to the rule. Even match officials have spoken of giving dubious hand passes “the benefit of the doubt”.
It appears to inhabit the same space as the infraction of ‘over-carrying’. With the speed of the modern game, counting steps has become as difficult in-game as trying to discern a ‘definite striking action’ for the hand pass.
Yet when this happens in the build-up to a score, it tends to be glossed over. There was even a goal of the year some time ago that involved the ball being over-carried.
Does anyone protest apart from supporters of the team that concedes the score? And even they do so with the weariness associated with victims of petty crime, annoyance more than outrage.
The FRC rule enhancements generally don’t have application in hurling but the stiffened penalties for dissent and obstruction after the opposition have been awarded a free are being looked at with interest by the Hurling Development Committee as a way of having a similar impact on indiscipline in the game.
Football may have most of the proprietary problems but proposed solutions are open source.
