Rules will be tinkered with before NFL opener

AFTER MEETING intercounty managers representing all provinces on Wednesday night, chairman of the rules experiments committee Liam O’Neill has confirmed that no fundamental changes will be considered until after the first three rounds of the National Hurling League.

There will, however, be some alterations ahead of the National Football League opener between All-Ireland champions Tyrone and Dublin on January 31st.

The managers, including two-time All-Ireland winner John O’Mahony, now in charge of his native Mayo, were primarily concerned about the pace of the game due to the extra responsibilities heaped upon referees.

The new black book system, effectively replacing the yellow card, was identified as an advantage to the team that fouls as a quick free or advantage was held up by admonishing and noting the guilty player.

O’Neill confirmed that this can be addressed and informed a referees meeting in Athlone last night.

“There can be a tweak in the rules,” said O’Neill. “Instead of a referee completely stopping play he can take the players number so as to speed matters up.”

O’Neill ruled out linking up referees to fourth officials for this task stating: “It has to work everywhere, remember, and this is not feasible at, say, a Junior B match.”

Confusion has arisen over the fortnight suspension if a player receives two yellow cards. There was also no confirmation whether a player is suspended again on his return if he receives another yellow card.

“There is a timing issue here,” said O’Neill. “The managers have asked that we consider a one-match ban for this as some players will not miss any games for a fortnight ban. This has been a problem before and we must go before Central Council with it. The problem is there is no Central Council meeting before the league starts. But this is not a deal breaker.”

O’Neill added that the constant fear about the loss of physicality in the games was not mentioned by the managers. “There was no strong debate on this. We are introducing four fouls and we showed these to the managers, using prior examples (on DVD), and asked them to classify them. This was also done with referees.

“The underlying philosophy is to protect skilful players. There is no effort to get players or catch them out. The message we continue to give to referees is if you have to think about it, it is not a yellow card.”

O’Mahony, while adamant the jury is still out on the experiments, speaking on behalf of the managers, accepted no judgment will be past until two rounds into the National Football League and after three rounds of the hurling.

“Our viewpoints on the black book were taken on board as was everything we suggested,” he said. “We made our views very clearly for future reference. The general consensus regarding players getting taken out is everyone wants to see that got rid of. The challenge for managers is we must fine tune to keep the physicality in the game – so it doesn’t become touch football – and avoid yellow cards in doing so.”