Joe Brolly

[blewuporstuffed]

Of course players and managers didn't want the black card (or the reds or yellows either no doubt or refs or anything that might keep a biteen of manners on them )
Administrators (through Congress) make the rules , players and managers are required to abide by them.
How many people would vote for Income tax, PRSI etc but Government/Dáil legislate for them.

yeah sure why should we listen to the people actually taking part in the games 
In any case, they were right about the black card , it has been applied completely inconsistently, and done little to reduce cynical fouling. 

[JimStynes]

Joe must loving having a look at this webpage and seeing 161 pages with his name.

[County Man]

I enjoy Joe Brolly.

He offers some interesting views on both his newspaper articles and on the Sunday Game.

[Rossfan]

Of course players and managers didn't want the black card (or the reds or yellows either no doubt or refs or anything that might keep a biteen of manners on them )
Administrators (through Congress) make the rules , players and managers are required to abide by them.
How many people would vote for Income tax, PRSI etc but Government/Dáil legislate for them.

yeah sure why should we listen to the people actually taking part in the games 
In any case, they were right about the black card , it has been applied completely inconsistently, and done little to reduce cynical fouling.

The dreary steeples syndrome still rules

[Jinxy]

Of course players and managers didn't want the black card (or the reds or yellows either no doubt or refs or anything that might keep a biteen of manners on them )
Administrators (through Congress) make the rules , players and managers are required to abide by them.
How many people would vote for Income tax, PRSI etc but Government/Dáil legislate for them.

yeah sure why should we listen to the people actually taking part in the games 
In any case, they were right about the black card , it has been applied completely inconsistently, and done little to reduce cynical fouling.

We should certainly listen to them, but they should not have the power to torpedo any proposed rule change, like they did with the sin bin.
I'll be honest, I don't look forward to inter-county football games any more.
They're usually ugly wars of attrition or one-sided hammerings.
Now hurling is going the same way.
If you ask anyone to pick the best games in football and hurling respectively from the last 5 years most of them will pick Dublin vs. Kerry (2013) and Galway vs. Tipperary (2015).
Both games were end to end, high scoring affairs.
Were there 'errors' in both games?
God yes, plenty of them.
People would argue that these teams were poor defensively and conceded too much, therefore they couldn't be truly 'great games'.
And this is the nub of the problem.

We have tried to eradicate 'errors' from our games and the quickest way of doing that is to eradicate risk.
Eradicate risk and you eradicate skill.
Eradicate skill and you eradicate enjoyment.
Eradicate enjoyment and you eradicate entertainment.
But hey, managers and players will say, "We're in the RESULTS business", and that's fair enough, but the games do not belong to them.
They belong to all of us.
Games like those which I've cited above lift peoples spirits in an age of increasing cynicism.
They make kids want to play the games and they make adults want to watch the games and ultimately, as an association, we're supposed to be all about participation and enjoyment.
Can we arrest the decline of gaelic games as a spectacle?
Possibly not, but it's certainly worth trying.

[blewuporstuffed]

Of course players and managers didn't want the black card (or the reds or yellows either no doubt or refs or anything that might keep a biteen of manners on them )
Administrators (through Congress) make the rules , players and managers are required to abide by them.
How many people would vote for Income tax, PRSI etc but Government/Dáil legislate for them.

yeah sure why should we listen to the people actually taking part in the games 
In any case, they were right about the black card , it has been applied completely inconsistently, and done little to reduce cynical fouling.

The dreary steeples syndrome still rules

Do you honestly think banning the hand pass is a good (or even feasible) idea?

[Fuzzman]

I think the black card has worked to some degree. At the start I wasn't too keen on it and there is still a lot of inconsistency with it but in certain matches I think it does have an impact.
Look at the recent Martin McElhinney sending off after a black card. He purposely took a defender out of it with a third man tackle and so he got punished. Now some good argue in the old rules he could have got a yellow anyway which is fair enough.
I think players certainly are a a bit more reluctant to drag a man down early on in games though it still seems to happen in the last 5 or 10 mins of a game if it saves a goal so that problem still exists and is hard to address.

I feel BennyHarp is right that teams are evolving again and even Donegal are a lot more attack minded as they started off with a very defence focused approach and when that was in place they then addressed the attack much more. Whereas Dublin and Kerry already had great attacking players but to compete against teams like Donegal they had to change the way they played. It sure is fascinating to watch the tactical battle between the top teams now but what you are finding this year that most of the other teams are being left well behind.
Cavan are a prime example of this where they able to stay quite close to Tyrone for most of their league games and the 1st championship game. However, when they lost their shape they totally fell apart and looked wide open.

To me the teams outside the top 5 or 6 are falling further behind all the time and are being made look very poor.

[Rossfan]

Of course players and managers didn't want the black card (or the reds or yellows either no doubt or refs or anything that might keep a biteen of manners on them )
Administrators (through Congress) make the rules , players and managers are required to abide by them.
How many people would vote for Income tax, PRSI etc but Government/Dáil legislate for them.

yeah sure why should we listen to the people actually taking part in the games 
In any case, they were right about the black card , it has been applied completely inconsistently, and done little to reduce cynical fouling.

The dreary steeples syndrome still rules

Do you honestly think banning the hand pass is a good (or even feasible) idea?

Good idea of course.
At least severely restrict the skill less tossball ( happy now throw ball ) sh1te and bring the FOOT back into Gaelic FOOTBALL.
And do away with tossing the ball over the bar as well.

[blewuporstuffed]

Of course players and managers didn't want the black card (or the reds or yellows either no doubt or refs or anything that might keep a biteen of manners on them )
Administrators (through Congress) make the rules , players and managers are required to abide by them.
How many people would vote for Income tax, PRSI etc but Government/Dáil legislate for them.

yeah sure why should we listen to the people actually taking part in the games 
In any case, they were right about the black card , it has been applied completely inconsistently, and done little to reduce cynical fouling.

The dreary steeples syndrome still rules

Do you honestly think banning the hand pass is a good (or even feasible) idea?

Good idea of course.
At least severely restrict the skill less tossball ( happy now throw ball ) sh1te and bring the FOOT back into Gaelic FOOTBALL.
And do away with tossing the ball over the bar as well.

I'm sorry , but this is complete an utter nonsense.
Im not sure if you are a WUM or just have no clue at all about the game of Gaelic football.

[Jinxy]

Three consecutive hand-passes allowed, then you have to kick it.
Get rid of the fisted point.
Don't see how anyone could argue against either suggestion.
Unless they've developed a playing system which takes advantage of unlimited hand-passing and therefore stand to lose out if they are restricted.

[rrhf]

Of course players and managers didn't want the black card (or the reds or yellows either no doubt or refs or anything that might keep a biteen of manners on them )
Administrators (through Congress) make the rules , players and managers are required to abide by them.
How many people would vote for Income tax, PRSI etc but Government/Dáil legislate for them.

yeah sure why should we listen to the people actually taking part in the games 
In any case, they were right about the black card , it has been applied completely inconsistently, and done little to reduce cynical fouling.

The dreary steeples syndrome still rules

Do you honestly think banning the hand pass is a good (or even feasible) idea?

Good idea of course.
At least severely restrict the skill less tossball ( happy now throw ball ) sh1te and bring the FOOT back into Gaelic FOOTBALL.
And do away with tossing the ball over the bar as well.

While you are at it, it hasn't been the same since the bishop stopped throwing the ball in.  Watched the kerry golden years a couple of weeks ago.  Some of the kicking skills left a lot to be desired.  it was often aimless and long like a bad golfer at the driving range. 

[Jinxy]

The Tyrone lads always come out of the woodwork when anyone badmouths their beloved hand-pass. 

[blewuporstuffed]

Three consecutive hand-passes allowed, then you have to kick it.
Get rid of the fisted point.
Don't see how anyone could argue against either suggestion.
Unless they've developed a playing system which takes advantage of unlimited hand-passing and therefore stand to lose out if they are restricted.

Those suggestions will certainly mean there will be more kicking in the game, but will the game be any better?
You will have more long hoofs just to get rid of it, just because the hand pass isn't allowed.
You will have more 5 yard kickpasses, because that is the best pass to make, but the handpass isnt allowed.
It will become more difficult to run the ball at pace (which is a s good to watch as a team kicking it long)
Even more teams will drop players back deep because they know after 3 handpasses a kickpass will have to come.

[BennyHarp]

The Tyrone lads always come out of the woodwork when anyone badmouths their beloved hand-pass. 

Nobody is stopping you kicking the ball if you want!

[blewuporstuffed]

The Tyrone lads always come out of the woodwork when anyone badmouths their beloved hand-pass. 

You meath lads are just pining back to the days when meath players kicked anything that moved