FORMER Tyrone coach Peter Donnelly believes that the new rules will come to suit his native county’s attacking arsenal – and that players enjoying them is reason enough to persist with the changes.
After months of endless discussion, the seven ‘core enhancements’ delivered by Jim Gavin’s Football Review Committee got their first airing last weekend.
Opinions differed depending on who you spoke to or which podcast you tuned into, but for Donnelly, just back off the plane from Perth with the Irish rugby sevens team, the key lies with the thoughts of the players themselves.
“I will be [a fan of the rules], I think. The feedback I’ve had, the players seem to be enjoying it, the large proportion of them. They’re the most important people here.
“For me, it’s to get on their wavelength and nudge it on further down the line and make it faster. I’ve been speaking to a few of the Tyrone lads, they seem to enjoy it.
“That’s what I took out of watching the bit of round one, players seem to be enjoying it and they’re open to change. I think from a coach’s point of view, anybody who’s really innovative will get on board with it and enjoy that challenge as well.
“That’s gonna be important in it all, that the coaches embrace the challenge of it all and start being innovative and curious around it. That’s the exciting thing about it, there’s no real arm around the homework about it.
“People are phoning each other and finding out what’s working for them, what the challenges are, they’re phoning medical teams, they’re phoning analysts. I think that’s the good thing at the minute, everyone’s in the same boat and everyone’s learning.”
One round of the league after no pre-season competitions felt early for definitive judgement but that’s a lot of what we got.
It looked different from game-to-game, but there was a notable difference in the games outside Division One, which were more fluid and high-scoring.
The Dublin-Mayo game at Croke Park, on a firmer, faster sod, was the most enterprising of the three top tier games played.
Much of the discussion centred on the role of the goalkeepers, particularly Niall Morgan, with Derry boss Paddy Tally declaring afterwards that “the twelfth man is killing the game”.
As the year goes on and the pitches harden, Donnelly expects the game and the nature of attacks to speed up.
“Just watching the Dublin-Mayo game in Croke Park, it looked quite fast, a lot of the transitions in it were quite fast compared to the other games. There were a lot of fast attacks in it.
“When the ground hardens up a bit, you’re going to see a bit more of the fast transitions for sure. The other big thing I’ve noticed, the referee, the condition they’re going to be in. the 50m penalties and then they have to sprint up the pitch, there’s a lot on them now.
“There were a lot of slow attacks [in the other games], there’s probably a reduction in the running for the three up and three back inside. The middle eight are having to do quite a bit. I’d just be interested to know what the cost of all that is.
“Every team is using GPS now but there’s more kickouts going long, players like Conor Glass or Brian Kennedy, there’s a lot of contact in that. If they were wearing heart rate [monitors], that would show the cost of it.
“A lot of teams are probably still training hard. It’s tricky, it depends, some of them have six-day turnarounds and coaches will have to learn how to adapt to that. I don’t know what the lie of the land would be, is there a reduction in injuries or a spike?
“Just looking at running trends, a lot of goalkeepers, particularly the Ulster ones, had shots [on the opening weekend] and scored. If you were the Cork goalkeeper, coming up into attacks and hitting 40 kickouts, Meath had 40 shots.
“There’s a bit more cost on him, even though there’s a lot of low-speed running in it but how they train is going to be quite different.
“There’s going to be teams that are better at using their goalkeeper than others but teams will be happy enough to give the flanks free in transitions and defend hard up the middle.
“As the season goes on and the more research will be done on goalkeepers, you’re looking what they’re doing with their first play – are they going to solo it, are they happy enough to take steps?”
Another factor was how seldom teams decided to utilise the extra space in attack with early ball, with opportunities passed up on turnovers as teams opted to keep the ball and play a safer game.
“It’s habitual, a lot of people are still playing safe, keep the possession, keep that first pass and maybe straighten it up a bit,” says Donnelly.
“Really if they look beyond the first pass there could be a lot of things on. That’s maybe where the initial thinking was in the FRC, they’re thinking ‘let’s get players’ heads up’. It’s gonna be a good challenge for coaches to develop that in players.”
The Tyrone team that overcame Derry was a mixture of old and new. They will get a serious test on Saturday evening at the home of their neighbours and already-wounded All-Ireland champions, Armagh.
But as the season progressed, Donnelly expects that the Red Hands’ profile will be kindly aligned with the alterations football is making to itself.
“I think it’s gonna suit them, even some of their defenders in terms of attacking, Michael McKernan, Shea O’Hare, they’re happy to solo and take men on. They can beat men in possession.
“That’s a massive plus for a lot of them, they’re not just happy to shovel the ball off and create 2v1s, those boys would be happy enough in 1v1 scenarios. They have good agility and strength and they’re very capable of carrying the ball hard. The plus side is they can finish, a lot of them. That works well for them.
”The profile of their forwards, they have savage agility inside. Once teams stop being so reductionist in terms of shovelling the ball to the side and start to look up a wee bit, they could be quite prolific.”
Donnelly, who worked with Tyrone in a variety of roles under both Mickey Harte and the Feargal Logan-Brian Dooher management, is hosting a coaching night in Coalisland on Monday evening.
Alongside Andy Moran and Stephen O’Neill, they will examine how to best utilise the new rules.
“The two lads we have were prolific and what made them stand out was their smarts, their game smarts, how intelligent and innovative they were. No matter how the game changed, Stevie O’Neill scored all the time and the amount of assists Andy Moran had, the guile he showed, was really interesting.
“The thing about them is they still have the bit of insight to go and improve other players. They’re always thinking and trying to be better than the rest.
“I’ve worked with both of them before and I know the energy and the thinking they’ll bring within that, they’re always looking to attack the scoreboard.”
* Andy Moran and Stephen O’Neill will join Peter Donnelly tonight (Monday) in hosting a structured training session designed around the new GAA rules and bringing the theory to life. The event takes place at Coalisland Na Fianna club on Monday, February 3 at 7pm. Tickets are available from the link below, priced at £30, from the link below: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/field-forward-on-field-gaa-enhanced-rules-workshop-tickets-1152513251159?aff=oddtdtcreator