Rule Change Needed to Stop Puke Keep-Ball

Started by cjx, July 15, 2018, 11:55:14 PM

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trailer

Quote from: thewobbler on July 17, 2018, 04:57:40 PM
Quote from: trailer on July 17, 2018, 04:50:09 PM
Quote from: thewobbler on July 17, 2018, 04:20:50 PM
Quote from: BennyHarp on July 17, 2018, 03:30:23 PM
Quote from: thewobbler on July 17, 2018, 03:16:44 PM
Did any of fellas play football before kicking freed from the hand came in?

The game was similarly bucked at that time.

That was a rule change that was easy to ref, easy to implement and didn't disrupt the flow of the game. It wasn't designed to counteract any tactical innovation bought to the game and just made common sense. However, it did also have the side effect of nearly killing the art of free kicking off the ground. All rules have side effects and the idea of bringing in a rule or rules because some team have used a particular tactic just doesn't sit well with me. Count down clocks for tackling, no back passes, no going back into your own half etc are all well intended but are all riddled with unintended consequences.

Lol. Seriously?

The consequence of kicking frees from hand is the game we have now. It allowed the team who were fouled to easily retain possession and therefore was the pivotal reason for the change from a territorial game a la hurling into the possession game we now know.

It took a few years to bed in, a few more years to become a defined tactic, and a few more years again to be the ultimate game killer... aided in no small way by the allowance for quick restarts. Which ironically were meant to speed the game up.


In short, football we now know is directly related to what happened in 1990. What Dublin did at the weekend would never have been possible with frees from the ground.

——

By the way, I've no interest in going back in time. I prefer possession over territory and would never advocate a reversal.

Why I brought up 1990 is simple.

The game was a f**king mess. It was routinely owned by one county, and when they met anyone apart from a couple of teams, they slapped them into the ground. Attendances were appalling and interest was low. It was a non spectacle.

A rule change led to 20 years of unpredictable championships and unbelievable crowds.

That rule change created the game half of this thread profess to adore unflinchingly. Well you wouldn't f**king have it lads if people who give a f**k hadn't changed the rules.

So if you take a free from the ground it is impossible to kick it to one of your team mates but out of your hand it isn't? Is that what you're saying?

Are you 3 years old?

Show me where "impossible" comes into this. The key to possession football is in reducing the chance of dispossession.

You're a f**king childish ****

Calm down big lad. You're getting way too wound up about this. Does some Dublin fella out the front of your house keep taking your ball off you? 

seafoid

Possession is also facilitated by superior S&C and brutal training regimes.
This is concentrating success amongst a smaller number of teams.
The spectacle suffers.
"f**k it, just score"- Donaghy   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbxG2WwVRjU

APM

Quote from: trailer on July 17, 2018, 05:15:17 PM
Quote from: thewobbler on July 17, 2018, 04:57:40 PM
Quote from: trailer on July 17, 2018, 04:50:09 PM
Quote from: thewobbler on July 17, 2018, 04:20:50 PM
Quote from: BennyHarp on July 17, 2018, 03:30:23 PM
Quote from: thewobbler on July 17, 2018, 03:16:44 PM
Did any of fellas play football before kicking freed from the hand came in?

The game was similarly bucked at that time.

That was a rule change that was easy to ref, easy to implement and didn't disrupt the flow of the game. It wasn't designed to counteract any tactical innovation bought to the game and just made common sense. However, it did also have the side effect of nearly killing the art of free kicking off the ground. All rules have side effects and the idea of bringing in a rule or rules because some team have used a particular tactic just doesn't sit well with me. Count down clocks for tackling, no back passes, no going back into your own half etc are all well intended but are all riddled with unintended consequences.

Lol. Seriously?

The consequence of kicking frees from hand is the game we have now. It allowed the team who were fouled to easily retain possession and therefore was the pivotal reason for the change from a territorial game a la hurling into the possession game we now know.

It took a few years to bed in, a few more years to become a defined tactic, and a few more years again to be the ultimate game killer... aided in no small way by the allowance for quick restarts. Which ironically were meant to speed the game up.


In short, football we now know is directly related to what happened in 1990. What Dublin did at the weekend would never have been possible with frees from the ground.

——

By the way, I've no interest in going back in time. I prefer possession over territory and would never advocate a reversal.

Why I brought up 1990 is simple.

The game was a f**king mess. It was routinely owned by one county, and when they met anyone apart from a couple of teams, they slapped them into the ground. Attendances were appalling and interest was low. It was a non spectacle.

A rule change led to 20 years of unpredictable championships and unbelievable crowds.

That rule change created the game half of this thread profess to adore unflinchingly. Well you wouldn't f**king have it lads if people who give a f**k hadn't changed the rules.

So if you take a free from the ground it is impossible to kick it to one of your team mates but out of your hand it isn't? Is that what you're saying?

Are you 3 years old?

Show me where "impossible" comes into this. The key to possession football is in reducing the chance of dispossession.

You're a f**king childish ****

Calm down big lad. You're getting way too wound up about this. Does some Dublin fella out the front of your house keep taking your ball off you?

He's absolutely correct to be frustrated at your nonsense and smugness.  I can't understand why people cannot recognize a major problem when they see it.

There's a cycle involved that leads to the strong teams getting stronger and harder to beat! It goes like this - weaker county innovates (new training methods like Down in 1960s, S&C, development squads, blanket defence in 2000s, possession football etc), they achieve success, stronger counties learn lessons, replicate and reassert dominance. 

When the stronger counties learn these lessons from innovating smaller / traditionally weaker counties who achieve temporary success, with their greater array of talent and deeper pockets the gap between the weak and strong gets progressively wider and it becomes harder to bridge the gap. 

However, you don't change the rules because some counties can't compete - you change the rules because the game is f***king unwatchable. So it's not about leveling the playing field, its about having games that people will watch.  Unless you have your head stuck in the sand, you would have to acknowledge, that in the last 10 years, attendances have been falling.

BennyHarp

#153
Is falling attendances solely due to the perceived "unwatchable" games? Or maybe there are a whole raft of other socio economic and cultural reasons why attendances have fallen??

For every one minute of boring play I'll give you at least one example of great tackling, great shooting, lung bursting runs, great high fielding, precision kick outs, excellent team worked scores. What a disservice posts like the above by APM do when you think of contributions like Niall Sludden's goal and ball carrying, Scully's sublime first goal, Karl O'connell's Pace and finishing, Brian Howard dominating a game at 19 years of age, Ritchie Donnelly roasting an excellent full back, Enda Smith with the goal of the season, the utterly superb David Clifford, Daniel Flynn's power running, Shane Walsh's points, Conor McManus' points from angles, Rory Beggan and Micheal Murphy's free Kicking etc and all the other good things served up over the weekend. Tell me these guys didn't provide any entertainment over the 4 games that was "watchable"? Not to mention the tactical battles that are won and lost throughout the pitch. There's hardly any talk of the sublime things that happen. What we get is a hand wringing thread about a 5 min passage of play and how we can introduce new rules to change it all. I suppose it's all about seeing what you want to see when your watching a match. Yes it isn't perfect but don't tell me that there's no entertainment or passages of great play on show week in week out or that it is "f**king unwatchable".
That was never a square ball!!

blewuporstuffed

Quote from: BennyHarp on July 17, 2018, 08:38:21 PM
Is falling attendances solely due to the perceived "unwatchable" games? Or maybe there are a whole raft of other socio economic and cultural reasons why attendances have fallen??

For every one minute of boring play I'll give you at least one example of great tackling, great shooting, lung bursting runs, great high fielding, precision kick outs, excellent team worked scores. What a disservice posts like the above by APM do when you think of contributions like Niall Sludden's goal and ball carrying, Scully's sublime first goal, Karl O'connell's Pace and finishing, Brian Howard dominating a game at 19 years of age, Ritchie Donnelly roasting an excellent full back, Enda Smith with the goal of the season, the utterly superb David Clifford, Daniel Flynn's power running, Shane Walsh's points, Conor McManus' points from angles, Rory Beggan and Micheal Murphy's free Kicking etc and all the other good things served up over the weekend. Tell me these guys didn't provide any entertainment over the 4 games that was "watchable"? Not to mention the tactical battles that are won and lost throughout the pitch. There's hardly any talk of the sublime things that happen. What we get is a hand wringing thread about a 5 min passage of play and how we can introduce new rules to change it all. I suppose it's all about seeing what you want to see when your watching a match. Yes it isn't perfect but don't tell me that there's no entertainment or passages of great play on show week in week out or that it is "f**king unwatchable".
Great post Benny
Alot of these suggestions would fundamentally change the game and while the current game certainly has some issues, the whole thing is being massively exaggerated by the narrative we constantly listen to from the media and most notably the 3 amigos on RTE .
What the game needs is minor refinement not major surgery
I can only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow doesn't look good either

APM

Quote from: BennyHarp on July 17, 2018, 08:38:21 PM
Is falling attendances solely due to the perceived "unwatchable" games? Or maybe there are a whole raft of other socio economic and cultural reasons why attendances have fallen??

For every one minute of boring play I'll give you at least one example of great tackling, great shooting, lung bursting runs, great high fielding, precision kick outs, excellent team worked scores. What a disservice posts like the above by APM do when you think of contributions like Niall Sludden's goal and ball carrying, Scully's sublime first goal, Karl O'connell's Pace and finishing, Brian Howard dominating a game at 19 years of age, Ritchie Donnelly roasting an excellent full back, Enda Smith with the goal of the season, the utterly superb David Clifford, Daniel Flynn's power running, Shane Walsh's points, Conor McManus' points from angles, Rory Beggan and Micheal Murphy's free Kicking etc and all the other good things served up over the weekend. Tell me these guys didn't provide any entertainment over the 4 games that was "watchable"? Not to mention the tactical battles that are won and lost throughout the pitch. There's hardly any talk of the sublime things that happen. What we get is a hand wringing thread about a 5 min passage of play and how we can introduce new rules to change it all. I suppose it's all about seeing what you want to see when your watching a match. Yes it isn't perfect but don't tell me that there's no entertainment or passages of great play on show week in week out or that it is "f**king unwatchable".

There are usually plenty of bits of individual brilliance to keep you interested and I usually get a kick out of most games and not all games are poor. Also, one thing about Gaelic Football is that even in a poor game, you will get flashes of brilliance, which means it will always hold an attraction for me.   However, watching Niall Sludden get a good goal in a 18pt hammering of Roscommon might be great for Tyrone supporters, but it means little to the neutral who would prefer to see a great goal that is crucial in terms of the result.  I'm thinking of Maurice Fitzgerald's goal in extra time v Armagh in 2000.  Mulligan's goal v Dublin in 2005.  Those were great goals in tight games, against strong opposition in games that could have swung one way or another. 

Football is a fantastic sport when it's end to end, with both teams going for it, taking risks and playing with adventure, as Brolly likes to say. The crowd feeds of this kind of excitement and I think the players respond to it.  I hate to say it, but the kind of possession Gaelic Football that we see now on a regular basis is too much like soccer for my liking.  Tactically it is much more advanced and for the anorak, there is much to admire, but its hard to get excited about guys passing the ball about in an arc around the '50' and back passing into their own half. The atmosphere of so many games these days is terribly flat and that in turn means that it is not as enjoyable for the crowd, whether they are neutral or not. 


thewobbler

Well considering that teams playing keep in their own half has only been a sporadic thing until recently, surely to god it's a minor refinement to find ways to stem it from happening.

BennyHarp

Quote from: APM on July 17, 2018, 09:46:38 PM
Quote from: BennyHarp on July 17, 2018, 08:38:21 PM
Is falling attendances solely due to the perceived "unwatchable" games? Or maybe there are a whole raft of other socio economic and cultural reasons why attendances have fallen??

For every one minute of boring play I'll give you at least one example of great tackling, great shooting, lung bursting runs, great high fielding, precision kick outs, excellent team worked scores. What a disservice posts like the above by APM do when you think of contributions like Niall Sludden's goal and ball carrying, Scully's sublime first goal, Karl O'connell's Pace and finishing, Brian Howard dominating a game at 19 years of age, Ritchie Donnelly roasting an excellent full back, Enda Smith with the goal of the season, the utterly superb David Clifford, Daniel Flynn's power running, Shane Walsh's points, Conor McManus' points from angles, Rory Beggan and Micheal Murphy's free Kicking etc and all the other good things served up over the weekend. Tell me these guys didn't provide any entertainment over the 4 games that was "watchable"? Not to mention the tactical battles that are won and lost throughout the pitch. There's hardly any talk of the sublime things that happen. What we get is a hand wringing thread about a 5 min passage of play and how we can introduce new rules to change it all. I suppose it's all about seeing what you want to see when your watching a match. Yes it isn't perfect but don't tell me that there's no entertainment or passages of great play on show week in week out or that it is "f**king unwatchable".

There are usually plenty of bits of individual brilliance to keep you interested and I usually get a kick out of most games and not all games are poor. Also, one thing about Gaelic Football is that even in a poor game, you will get flashes of brilliance, which means it will always hold an attraction for me.   However, watching Niall Sludden get a good goal in a 18pt hammering of Roscommon might be great for Tyrone supporters, but it means little to the neutral who would prefer to see a great goal that is crucial in terms of the result.  I'm thinking of Maurice Fitzgerald's goal in extra time v Armagh in 2000.  Mulligan's goal v Dublin in 2005.  Those were great goals in tight games, against strong opposition in games that could have swung one way or another. 

Football is a fantastic sport when it's end to end, with both teams going for it, taking risks and playing with adventure, as Brolly likes to say. The crowd feeds of this kind of excitement and I think the players respond to it.  I hate to say it, but the kind of possession Gaelic Football that we see now on a regular basis is too much like soccer for my liking.  Tactically it is much more advanced and for the anorak, there is much to admire, but its hard to get excited about guys passing the ball about in an arc around the '50' and back passing into their own half. The atmosphere of so many games these days is terribly flat and that in turn means that it is not as enjoyable for the crowd, whether they are neutral or not.

Just a point of notice - Sludden's goal put Tyrone in front in the 12th minute - did you know at that stage it was going to be a 18 point hammering? Or does context in hindsight change the quality of the goal? And quoting Joe Brolly? Jesus wept!
That was never a square ball!!

APM

Quote from: blewuporstuffed on July 17, 2018, 09:32:12 PM
Quote from: BennyHarp on July 17, 2018, 08:38:21 PM
Is falling attendances solely due to the perceived "unwatchable" games? Or maybe there are a whole raft of other socio economic and cultural reasons why attendances have fallen??

For every one minute of boring play I'll give you at least one example of great tackling, great shooting, lung bursting runs, great high fielding, precision kick outs, excellent team worked scores. What a disservice posts like the above by APM do when you think of contributions like Niall Sludden's goal and ball carrying, Scully's sublime first goal, Karl O'connell's Pace and finishing, Brian Howard dominating a game at 19 years of age, Ritchie Donnelly roasting an excellent full back, Enda Smith with the goal of the season, the utterly superb David Clifford, Daniel Flynn's power running, Shane Walsh's points, Conor McManus' points from angles, Rory Beggan and Micheal Murphy's free Kicking etc and all the other good things served up over the weekend. Tell me these guys didn't provide any entertainment over the 4 games that was "watchable"? Not to mention the tactical battles that are won and lost throughout the pitch. There's hardly any talk of the sublime things that happen. What we get is a hand wringing thread about a 5 min passage of play and how we can introduce new rules to change it all. I suppose it's all about seeing what you want to see when your watching a match. Yes it isn't perfect but don't tell me that there's no entertainment or passages of great play on show week in week out or that it is "f**king unwatchable".
Great post Benny
Alot of these suggestions would fundamentally change the game and while the current game certainly has some issues, the whole thing is being massively exaggerated by the narrative we constantly listen to from the media and most notably the 3 amigos on RTE .
What the game needs is minor refinement not major surgery

I would actually agree with that and have a major issue with the constant negativity from the RTE pundits who have been denigrating the game for years now.  However, in the last couple of years, I have come round to the notion that they might just have a point on some of what they are saying.  I said above, they are partly right about the quality of our games, but the constant negativity that they have been preaching over an extended period of time is very harmful. 

I remember my father saying that Micheal O'Hare could have made a bad game sound good.  Micheal O'Muircheartaigh was the same and they seen that as being part of their job.  Brolly, Spillane and O'Rourke are quite the opposite and seem to have no interest in emphasising the positive. 

Nonetheless, we should also be prepared to address the fact that attendances are falling for a reason and you can bury your head in the sand all you like, but you explain to me why the atmosphere at so many games these days is so flat.  The supporters at the game don't have Brolly and Co. ringing in their ears at Healy Park and Clones to tell them what to think.  People get out of their seats when there is something to get excited about and I think in more and more games there is less to get you excited.  I appreciate that that kind of stuff is difficult to prove. 

Eamonnca1

Any harm in suggesting that RTE's constant stream of negative punditry is feeding this perception that the game's getting worse when no such thing is happening?

theskull1

I've recorded and watched the last half a dozen Sunday Game football matches start to finish on the fastest fast forward hoping to see if the game might develop into something worth watching . I'm not so sure I'm the only one. 
It's a lot easier to sing karaoke than to sing opera

trileacman

To be honest RTE's 3 amigos were decrying the state of the game back when it was a fine sport to watch. O'Rourke and Spillane were spouting the same negative shite 15 years ago as they are now. I'm not in agreement with them or the Luddite Brolly but the game for me has declined as a spectacle in the last 6-7 years.

I don't blame Harte, McGuinness or Gavin. Their remit is to be successful and to win and to give them credit they do not win games by 0-1 to no score on a regular basis. All 3 have presided over teams playing wonderful football down the years. The problem is they have discovered the key to winning matches is to blanket defend, hit teams on the break and treasure possession. They've studied the game to death and discovered this is the most successful way to corner the rule-book.

So in my opinion we need to modify the rules to close off this focus on possession and to incentivise risk taking. This shouldn't be seen as a tax on tactical genius, Harte and Gavin will find ways to exploit the new game after a couple of years and fair dues if they do.
Fantasy Rugby World Cup Champion 2011,
Fantasy 6 Nations Champion 2014

longballin

#162
Quote from: Eamonnca1 on July 17, 2018, 10:16:14 PM
Any harm in suggesting that RTE's constant stream of negative punditry is feeding this perception that the game's getting worse when no such thing is happening?

did you watch the games at the weekend? people are capable of thinking for themselves. Brolly and them didn't even criticise the last 10 mins of Dublin game which  was dire

Eamonnca1

Quote from: longballin on July 17, 2018, 11:00:31 PM
Quote from: Eamonnca1 on July 17, 2018, 10:16:14 PM
Any harm in suggesting that RTE's constant stream of negative punditry is feeding this perception that the game's getting worse when no such thing is happening?

did you watch the games at the weekend? people are capable of thinking for themselves. Brolly and them didn't even criticise the last 10 mins of Dublin game which  was dire

Didn't see the games at the weekend.

longballin

Quote from: Eamonnca1 on July 17, 2018, 11:15:53 PM
Quote from: longballin on July 17, 2018, 11:00:31 PM
Quote from: Eamonnca1 on July 17, 2018, 10:16:14 PM
Any harm in suggesting that RTE's constant stream of negative punditry is feeding this perception that the game's getting worse when no such thing is happening?

did you watch the games at the weekend? people are capable of thinking for themselves. Brolly and them didn't even criticise the last 10 mins of Dublin game which  was dire

Didn't see the games at the weekend.

Ok... not easy viewing, to put it mildly.