O'Neill and Larkin rewrite the rules

AS RECIPIENTS of the first GAA/GPA 2012 Player of the Month awards it seemed a little unfair to be asking Colm O’Neill and Eoin Larkin what they would do to actually spice up their games, make them a little less predictable. But prompted by the GAA’s plans for a new root-and-branch inspection of football, specifically, it was first put to O’Neill what changes he might make to Gaelic football, should he, for argument’s sake, ever end up having to write about it for a living.

“I suppose the one thing you don’t like to see coming into the game is the blanket defence,” he says, to nods of approval. “But I don’t know how you could implement a rule to stop that.

“Teams are doing it now, and teams are just going to have to adapt to that kind of football. Still, there have been some excellent games out there in the last few years, so I think football is in a healthy place.”

O’Neill fell victim to the dreaded cruciate ligament tear in 2011, but bounced back in great style during Cork’s league campaign, capping it off in the Division One final with his fourth goal of their campaign – in what was Cork’s third successive title.

“Maybe if goals went up to five points,” he adds, “it would be good. That might entice people to go for goals more often.”

The feeling is teams will be more enticed by goals this summer anyway, given the new square-ball rule, although O’Neill admits it’s still too early to say who it will benefit: “As a forward you’d support it, but goalkeepers might look at it differently. It’s going to be difficult for referees and there could be a few hot moments throughout the championship.”

For Larkin, who delivered a man-of-the-match performance in Kilkenny’s convincing win over Cork in the NHL final, the question is not so much what to change in hurling but rather why change anything at all.

“Common sense comes into every-day life so why not sport,” says Larkin. “It’s not in the rule book, but if you wanted it black and white, there’d be a free every five seconds in a hurling game.

“Physicality is part and parcel of it. I don’t think there is any player will tell you they don’t want to be hit in a match. No one, after getting a shoulder, gets off the ground and starts crying. They know it’s part and parcel of it.”

As a keen observer of English soccer, Larkin says the one thing he is sure of is that “diving”, should it ever creep into hurling, would certainly complicate the issue further: “In the Premier League if you touch a lad it’s a free. No one wants to see hurling going like that. It doesn’t happen, thankfully, because watching it in soccer I get very frustrated to say the least.”