Provincial councils continue to back rules

None of the provincial councils that agreed on the GAA's experimental rule changes are considering any revisions as their respective football tournaments gather pace this weekend.

The introduction of the sin bin caused particular unease in last Sunday's first round of the O'Byrne Cup, but the Leinster Council will stick with it for this weekend's quarter-finals, as will the Munster and Connacht Councils for the start of the McGrath Cup and FBD League.

Just two games take place in the McGrath Cup, and yesterday Munster Council secretary Simon Moroney was still enthusiastic about seeing the new rule changes for himself.

"I think any period of experiment should last a number of weeks," he said. "I certainly don't think we should change anything midstream. We agreed on the rules for the McGrath Cup and we'll definitely be sticking with that.

"But maybe we were a little naive to expect the rules to work out perfectly from the start. So I would certainly have no problem in letting them go for another few weeks. We're only talking about one hour of football so far, and I think the process of adjustment was always going to take longer than that. Players need time to adapt, but if the situation arises where they're not then obviously we'll have to look at it again."

Connacht Council secretary John Prenty has also called on players and managers to give the experimental rules more time.

Sunday's Connacht League will see eight teams from the province play under the rules for the first time, including three college teams and the Clare junior football side - who made a special request to compete in the leagues. The Clare senior team are also out on Sunday in the McGrath Cup against Cork IT.

"I'd have absolutely no hesitation in keeping the rules for now," said Prenty. "I think we should wait and see how teams cope over a couple of weekends, rather than shoot them down after one or two matches."

Ulster were the only province to decide against using the rules changes, in the Dr McKenna Cup, and provincial secretary Danny Murphy yesterday stood by that option: "I've said it before that I would always welcome the idea of looking at certain rule changes", he said, "but I feel these were hurried, and not given the necessary lead in.

"We've seen before that things like the blood rule are one thing on paper, and another thing when trying to be implemented.

"And I think the big problem with the sin bin rule is trying to keep track of 10 minutes of actual playing time. I think that will always cause considerable difficulties. But my understanding is that these rules will be looked at again after the provincial competitions before being used in the league."

What all provinces have agreed on is to use their pre-season tournaments to help in the fund-raising efforts for the South Asia tsunami appeal.

The Leinster Council will donate the proceeds from all four O'Byrne Cup quarter-finals to the GOAL fund-raising appeal as well as making a general contribution, and have called on each county board to make a similar donation.

The Connacht Council have also announced that all money collected in this weekend's FBD football league and Knock Airport hurling league will go to the Asia tsunami appeal, and has called on the public to support the games in large numbers.

The Ulster Council will be staging collections at all games in the Dr McKenna Cup, while also making a general contribution, and the Munster Council will be donating the proceeds from next weekend's quarter-finals of the McGrath Cup.