New Tyrone boss Malachy O’Rourke doesn’t believe his work with the Football Review Committee will place him at an advantage over other managers when the new-look game is unveiled later this month.
As the only current inter-county manager on Jim Gavin’s group of innovators, he has a deeper understanding than most of the nuances that shape the extensive raft of rule changes which will operate at both club and county level in 2025.
O’Rourke has been guiding his players along a fast-tracked learning curve over the past few weeks and was the keynote speaker at a coaching conference based on the new rules at the weekend.
“I don’t think there’s any advantage there at all. I suppose you’d like to think that there might be, but I don’t honestly think there will,” he said.
“I think that maybe if the league would have started two months ago or three months ago, it might have had a wee bit of an advantage, but I think at this stage, everyone has had a good look at them.
“They’ve had plenty of time to read through them, plenty of time now to work with the players they have at their disposal.
“I think everyone will be more or less on the same page, but I suppose it’s just whoever adapts to them best and I suppose different players will adapt better.”
The former Monaghan and Fermanagh manager, who led Derry’s Glen to All-Ireland Club success last year, believes the game was in need of an overhaul.
And he’s excited by the potential of the changes in playing regulations to transform Gaelic football as a crowd-pleaser and a spectacle.
“I suppose most people did feel that the game needed to change. The remit we were given was to try and make it the most exciting amateur game in the world to play and to watch. I suppose that was the challenge.
“It wasn’t really about the tactical innovation or anything else, it was just trying to make it a better spectacle for everybody.”
But the Red Hand manager accepts that it will take time for players to adjust to the various measures that will test mind-sets and instinctive impulses in the heat of battle.
“It’ll take a few games just for everyone to bed in and the new rules to bed in. And just for teams to get, I suppose, the chemistry going.
“It probably will take a wee bit of time and there’ll be a bit of frustration from everybody, from players, from spectators and everyone else, because there are a few different rules there.
“But I think as time goes on, players will get used to it, supporters will get used to it, and hopefully it will leave it to be a better spectacle for everybody.
“Certainly, from our point of view, it’s a new challenge for all the players, but I know from working with the boys, it’s one that they’re embracing.
“They’re feeling very positive about it and they’re just looking forward to getting stuck into them and hopefully getting on top of things fairly early.”
O’Rourke is hoping the fans will re-connect with the county team in the season ahead, following a couple of years which saw Tyrone attendances dip.
A season opener against neighbours and Division One champions Derry, allied to curiosity over the new rules, and an off-season extended by the removal of the Dr McKenna Cup from the calendar should, in his opinion, whet appetites and set the turnstiles clicking at O’Neills Healy Park on January 25.
“I suppose the fact that there’s been no pre-season competition this year as well, it means that supporters will be keen to get back out to football and we’re certainly hoping that we’ll have a big Tyrone support there on the first night against Derry in Omagh.
“But we know as well that you have to be playing good football and you have to be showing that there’s a great effort being put in for supporters to really get behind you.
“So I suppose what our aim is, is to work really hard as a team unit and just to fight for each other and to keep going right to the final whistle.
“And I think if you do that, supporters will get behind the team and are willing to be patient with you and really follow you on the journey
“I think that’s first and foremost what people want to see, and I suppose that’s what we as a group want to do as well, to make sure that every time the boys go out that they represent the jersey in the right way and make sure that the supporters can be proud of everybody they take to the field.”