FORGET the occasional chaos and the rolling subs – eventually, teams will work out “how to control the energy of a game” under Gaelic football’s proposed new rules, according to Down coach Ciaran Meenagh.
Several talking points emerged from the weekend’s inter-provincial games, which offered a first look for most at exactly what impact the ‘rule enhancements’ brought forward by the Football Review Committee might have.
Of course, only a certain amount of information could be gleaned. These were still de facto challenge games with nothing of consequence at stake while players, on the whole, are still trying to wrap their heads around the changes.
But Meenagh – part of Kieran Donnelly’s Ulster management team - saw enough to feel that, in general, the FRC proposals have something positive to add.
Will it change football dramatically? Maybe not. But how teams prepare, and the way in which games are managed, will require a rethink once the hype dies down.
“The game has changed, but I don’t think it’s going to end up changing as much as people maybe think,” said the Loughmacrory man.
“The game was played there tonight in a manner where it was about how much could you score, how much could you avail of the new concepts, especially in how you attack.
“But if you were leading by six points inside the first 15 minutes, or leading by eight coming into the last five minutes, you wouldn’t attack like that. You’re not going to be fit to attack like that because you’re not going to be fit to cope with how frantic it is, and the energy and fitness it requires to do that.
“So teams are going to start to control the game more when they have the ball and, what I think you’ll find is the game will be controlled more in the other side of the field than what we’re used to, with the goalie being used higher up the pitch.
“That comes with a risk then if you get a turnover, but teams will sit in and use the goalkeeper because there’s three players that can stand four or five yards away [from the ‘keeper] but can’t come over the halfway line to tackle him, so teams will use that to control the energy of a game.
“Or teams will sit in a bit deeper with 12 players to defend, including their goalkeeper, and that will be a way of controlling the energy of a game. Every team will have to do that because, even tonight, we used 28 or 29 players and they used more because they used some twice… we had a lad there that came off after three 15 minutes, and that was with two breaks, and he was goosed.
“If you’re only fit to use five subs, you’re not going to play the game in a fashion where you blow the head gasket after 15 minutes.”
Not all are perfect either.
While Meenagh is a fan of the rule keeping three players up the pitch, and the scoring system, he worries that the new advanced mark is “adding a layer of complication for referees”, and echoed the sentiments of Niall Morgan in voicing concern about the practicality of the proposal for kick-outs to travel beyond the new 40 metre arc.
“I have a serious reservation about that.
“We’re playing there tonight in good conditions, but we played a game in Garvaghey last week in a gale force breeze, the ‘keeper was kicking the ball out and it was coming back in over the 45 again.
“Then it became messy, it became a scrap, it became nothing only frees. I don’t necessarily agree with that. If they want to keep the two point arc, and the original arc that was there for short kick-outs because teams are going to look to transition quicker with the three players up the field anyway.
“So I don’t think it’ll take away anything from the game, and the fact you can’t go back to your ‘keeper means that the team have to attack out. In this country, with the weather we get, and the breeze we get, that is something that has to be considered.
“But I would be open-minded, and I would look to see where the opportunities are in something. I’d be optimistic and prepared to give it a try.”
