WELL, there you have it folks – it is still nine weeks until Christmas, but the wrapper has officially been taken off what many hope will be a shiny new look for Gaelic football going into 2025.
Jim Gavin and his disciples have been working feverishly since the beginning of the year to devise ways that can improve the game. Speed it up. Quell the curse of lateral passing and deliver more thrills and spills.
This was a Croke Park occasion, but not as we know it. There was no colour on this grey October evening, no shouts of hats, scarves and headbands amid the Dublin drizzle. It was strictly business.
The big screen welcomed those who paid their 15 euro for the right to say they were here for the latest attempt at tailoring and tinkering, inviting the couple of hundred hardy souls sat in the Hogan Stand, and the watching public at home, to ‘come and enjoy the future of football’.
Roll up, roll up. Meanwhile, ringmaster Gavin was down on the sideline giving TG4 a final sell of the seven core rule enhancements that would change the face of the game. He has done TV, radio, press conferences, even Tiktok snippets, in a bid to get the word out.
If this was an election campaign, the former Dublin boss could have done little more in his efforts to top the poll.
The proof, though, was always going to be in the eating. Friday night’s first inter-provincial offering, between Connacht and Leinster, was so one-sided for so long that it became difficult to analyse the impact of the rules in their entirety, particularly amid a mess of rolling subs.
After all, for Gavin and the Football Review Committee, this was never meant to be about picking and choosing, but coming up with a cohort of changes that would complement each other.
Of course, there were the initial novelty factors. The sound of photographers snapping echoed around the stadium when Aidan O’Shea and Ray Connellan went up for the first throw-in, while Kevin Feely and Diarmuid Murtagh waited like caged tigers on the sideline.
Inside 40 seconds Michael Bambrick fisted back to Leinster goalkeeper Stephen Cluxton, though that indiscretion went unpunished. There was a bit of an ooooohhh when referee Martin McNally first whipped out his tin of vanishing spray.
But what about the game?
The three up rule made for loads more space in front of goal, widening the eyes of forwards like Murtagh and Paddy Small and scaring the bejaysus out of some backs suddenly marooned with no spare man about to help.
Those who have always relied on their reading of the game, rather than raw pace, will have to find ways and means to adapt should these proposals get through.
Will it be refereeable at club level, though? That’s a worry. McNally was mic’d up and still struggled at times.
Of course all of this is placed in the context of what was essentially an exhibition game, but the pace of the game was striking too as the ball moved up and down the field at breakneck speed – the absence of the sideways pass, that outlet for teams to take a breather, putting a far greater emphasis on anaerobic ability, and creating one on ones all over the field.
“I said to Brian Flanagan [Kildare manager], who’s with me: you’ll have the Curragh black this year with the amount of running you’ll be doing,” smiled Leinster manager Dessie Dolan earlier this week.
“The managers will have to find an extra gear in players as regards fitness levels.”
The scoring system – four points for a goal, two for a score from outside the new 40 metre arc – was an interesting one. Even though O’Shea rattled the net inside three minutes, the expected explosion of goals didn’t quite materialise, although chances and half-chances were far more prevalent than we’re used to.
But Murtagh, Daire Cregg and O’Shea all capitalised on Leinster sitting in during the first half to raise the white flag, then the red flag. Maybe just one flag, the red one, would do.
And even though Connacht were 22 points ahead at half-time, Leinster still managed to create four goalscoring opportunities inside 11 minutes of the final quarter. Killing a game off and having what we hold has become a lot more difficult.
With neither Cluxton nor Connacht counterpart Connor Gleeson the adventurous type – it wasn’t until the 39th minute that the Galway man rumbled beyond halfway – it was hard to see what impact the proposals affecting goalkeepers might make.
In the evening’s second game, between Ulster and Munster, it was much more clear. Not every team possesses a Niall Morgan, but he must be licking his lips after initial wariness. In the first he nailed all his kick-outs, created a point for Tyrone team-mate Kieran McGeary and kicked a two-pointer.
With more space opened up, the Edendork man is part of the clique who can become even more of a lethal weapon than is already the case.
So, the verdict? Was there a huge difference from the norm?
Huge? No. Noticeable? Definitely. Better? Possibly.
The potential is definitely there to achieve what Gavin and co set out to do – bring football back, to some degree, to man-to-man football rather than piggy in the middle.
But whether it runs the risk of going too far the other way, and bringing the flow of football closer to basketball, remains a lingering concern as the search to strike the right balance goes on.
