Gaelic Football - Rules & Regulations discussion/clarification

[Milltown Row2]

I think what annoys me about the mark is the player doesn't need to call for it any more by raising a hand. The opponent who is contesting the same ball can then be penalised for interfering with the mark when neither player actually knows if it is given by the ref.

The referee blews the whistle for every Mark and there never has been a rule to say the player had to signal for a Mark when they wanted to play on.

Correct, the only slight difference is whether he makes the mark (and if he raises the arm) players have to give way (as was the case regardless) and will they'll be punished if they attempt to play ball? Yes

[Stall the Bailer]

I think what annoys me about the mark is the player doesn't need to call for it any more by raising a hand. The opponent who is contesting the same ball can then be penalised for interfering with the mark when neither player actually knows if it is given by the ref.

The referee blews the whistle for every Mark and there never has been a rule to say the player had to signal for a Mark when they wanted to play on.

In fact it's the opposite.  If you put your hand up it means you are claiming the mark, and so you can't play on and therefore have no chance to be impeded to gain the additional 50m.  So a player catching the mark now should almost never put his hand up and claim the mark, IMO.

That's not the opposite of what I said but the same, I said they never had to raise their arm when playing on, not sure what you mean by opposite?

[Stall the Bailer]

I think what annoys me about the mark is the player doesn't need to call for it any more by raising a hand. The opponent who is contesting the same ball can then be penalised for interfering with the mark when neither player actually knows if it is given by the ref.

The referee blews the whistle for every Mark and there never has been a rule to say the player had to signal for a Mark when they wanted to play on.

Correct, the only slight difference is whether he makes the mark (and if he raises the arm) players have to give way (as was the case regardless) and will they'll be punished if they attempt to play ball? Yes

Yep it was always moved forward if they tackled the player as they landed from catching a Mark

[trileacman]

3:15 in this video. Eoghan Ban wins a fairly easy kickout, gets brushed by a Tyrone lad, wouldn't even be enough for a free yet the ball gets moved forward for a 2 point score. No harm but does winning a ball just outside your own 45 really warrant 2 points? Nonsensical instances like these really frustrate me watching football this year. Games are littered with really unexplainable instances of severe punishments for minor infractions.

It is a ridiculous rule and in no way does the punishment equate to the level of "offence". Hopefully that particular punishment is done away with when the time comes. This moving the ball forward 50 metres is often a nonsense, there was already a rule to move the ball forward. Should have just enforced that correctly in the first place.

Moving the ball 13 meters was always enforced. Players just need to catch themselves on..

Was speaking to a professional footballer today, he said they can say what they want to a ref and literally get away with it, at worst a yellow.

Players have no need to interfere with a free or give off ( rightly or wrongly) to a ref.

Any repercussions of their actions is completely on them

That's bullshit. As a supporter you never vent frustration at a miss or a decision at your team? I mean if refs are now such snowflakes that a player throwing his arms, kicking a water bottle out or saying "fucks sake ref" merits a 50m punishment then I think they'd be better handing back the whistle and letting someone who isn't so sensitive do it.

There's hundreds of people in the crowd throwing their hands up, swearing and getting emotionally involved in the match, it's part and parcel of sport. How is it fine that they do it but the players, the guys who have made the greatest sacrifices aren't allowed to display any emotion? The idea that players have to now behave like trained hounds, immediately interpreting and accepting the decisions of the referee is a joke.

There already existed 2 punishments for abuse of referees, black cards and 13m advances. It was more than enough to punish players who went beyond the acceptable limits of engaging with a referee. I don't see the need that during a game referees should be totally immune from any criticism of their performance given that everyone else, managers and players can receive plenty.

[thewobbler]

Trileac, you've posted on this multiple times now. You don't want officials, all you want is a punchbag. Someone to blame. Someone to vent at. Someone to despise.

[Truthsayer]

Trileac, you've posted on this multiple times now. You don't want officials, all you want is a punchbag. Someone to blame. Someone to vent at. Someone to despise.

I've said the same, last week as well        he's not a happy bunny!

[David McKeown]

A player catching a ball on the 45 from a kick out is a mark, it's been a mark for years, the repercussions at the time for interfering with a mark was always moving the ball forward, so rather than 13 meters it's now 50.. that's all on the player. He'd be so stupid to give that away when knowing that there was always a infraction..

Stop thinking of the ramifications of doing it and start looking at why players are doing it? It's bonkers

I don't think it is always bonkers. It can happen in a wide variety of situations including when a player jumps to contest the kick out and their momentum carries them into the opponent or when they have a different interpretation of how far 4 meters is.

A player falling onto someone isn't deliberately trying to prevent a quick 'mark' or free.. the ref has to know the difference. 4 meters  is easy..

A supporters perception on how he sees the rules being applied are not up for debate really.. as the ref will use his own judgement

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying here so apologies in advance if I've misunderstood but it's not perception on how rules are being interpreted it's how they are being inconsistently applied that is the problem.

Yes there will always be a human element to interpretation but you want to strive towards a consistent approach as much as possible. Rules that lead to inconsistency between matches are bad enough but rules like this which lead to inconsistency within games can be incredibly frustrating for players supporters management etc. That is further heightened when the inconsistent approach can have significant consequences on a result. For example when the difference in interpretation can result in easy 2 point frees.

Like everyone else referees will make mistakes and shouldn't be criticised for mistakes that are judgement calls. Sometimes mistakes will have significant consequences on matches. You want a coherent set of rules that can reduce errors through reducing inconsistency but also through where possible reducing the impact of errors on the overall result.

[Milltown Row2]

A player catching a ball on the 45 from a kick out is a mark, it's been a mark for years, the repercussions at the time for interfering with a mark was always moving the ball forward, so rather than 13 meters it's now 50.. that's all on the player. He'd be so stupid to give that away when knowing that there was always a infraction..

Stop thinking of the ramifications of doing it and start looking at why players are doing it? It's bonkers

I don't think it is always bonkers. It can happen in a wide variety of situations including when a player jumps to contest the kick out and their momentum carries them into the opponent or when they have a different interpretation of how far 4 meters is.

A player falling onto someone isn't deliberately trying to prevent a quick 'mark' or free.. the ref has to know the difference. 4 meters  is easy..

A supporters perception on how he sees the rules being applied are not up for debate really.. as the ref will use his own judgement

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying here so apologies in advance if I've misunderstood but it's not perception on how rules are being interpreted it's how they are being inconsistently applied that is the problem.

Yes there will always be a human element to interpretation but you want to strive towards a consistent approach as much as possible. Rules that lead to inconsistency between matches are bad enough but rules like this which lead to inconsistency within games can be incredibly frustrating for players supporters management etc. That is further heightened when the inconsistent approach can have significant consequences on a result. For example when the difference in interpretation can result in easy 2 point frees.

Like everyone else referees will make mistakes and shouldn't be criticised for mistakes that are judgement calls. Sometimes mistakes will have significant consequences on matches. You want a coherent set of rules that can reduce errors through reducing inconsistency but also through where possible reducing the impact of errors on the overall result.

The rules are not black and white though.. we could sit in a room and watch 20 examples of 'fouls' and you'd have inconsistencies among everyone one there on what should happen. I've seen it multiple times, you'll view it one way someone else will view it differently

[Smokin Joe]

I think what annoys me about the mark is the player doesn't need to call for it any more by raising a hand. The opponent who is contesting the same ball can then be penalised for interfering with the mark when neither player actually knows if it is given by the ref.

The referee blews the whistle for every Mark and there never has been a rule to say the player had to signal for a Mark when they wanted to play on.

In fact it's the opposite.  If you put your hand up it means you are claiming the mark, and so you can't play on and therefore have no chance to be impeded to gain the additional 50m.  So a player catching the mark now should almost never put his hand up and claim the mark, IMO.

That's not the opposite of what I said but the same, I said they never had to raise their arm when playing on, not sure what you mean by opposite?

I was continuing your point and was saying it was the opposite to the previous poster as he seemed to want the player to put up their hand so the opposition players knew that there was a mark, so they knew not to tackle him.

[trileacman]

A player catching a ball on the 45 from a kick out is a mark, it's been a mark for years, the repercussions at the time for interfering with a mark was always moving the ball forward, so rather than 13 meters it's now 50.. that's all on the player. He'd be so stupid to give that away when knowing that there was always a infraction..

Stop thinking of the ramifications of doing it and start looking at why players are doing it? It's bonkers

I don't think it is always bonkers. It can happen in a wide variety of situations including when a player jumps to contest the kick out and their momentum carries them into the opponent or when they have a different interpretation of how far 4 meters is.

A player falling onto someone isn't deliberately trying to prevent a quick 'mark' or free.. the ref has to know the difference. 4 meters  is easy..

A supporters perception on how he sees the rules being applied are not up for debate really.. as the ref will use his own judgement

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying here so apologies in advance if I've misunderstood but it's not perception on how rules are being interpreted it's how they are being inconsistently applied that is the problem.

Yes there will always be a human element to interpretation but you want to strive towards a consistent approach as much as possible. Rules that lead to inconsistency between matches are bad enough but rules like this which lead to inconsistency within games can be incredibly frustrating for players supporters management etc. That is further heightened when the inconsistent approach can have significant consequences on a result. For example when the difference in interpretation can result in easy 2 point frees.

Like everyone else referees will make mistakes and shouldn't be criticised for mistakes that are judgement calls. Sometimes mistakes will have significant consequences on matches. You want a coherent set of rules that can reduce errors through reducing inconsistency but also through where possible reducing the impact of errors on the overall result.

The rules are not black and white though.. we could sit in a room and watch 20 examples of 'fouls' and you'd have inconsistencies among everyone one there on what should happen. I've seen it multiple times, you'll view it one way someone else will view it differently

That's right. Hence referees should be able to understand that players or managers might get frustrated at their "interpretation". Moving the ball 50m for a player calling you "a f**king ****" I could understand. Moving the ball 50m because a player shakes their head or throws their arms out (as I've seen this year) is pretty ridiculous.

[David McKeown]

Just because you can't have 100% consistency doesn't mean you shouldn't still strive for as much consistency as possible. The current rule book doesn't help with that but neither does wildly different interpretations from referees who I presume receive regular group training.

[Milltown Row2]

The rules need simplified, Coldrick mentioned this on a podcast recently, when put to him about having two refs, he nailed it with what I've said, there's no consistency as the rules are not defined properly and having two refs with different interpretations of the 'tackle' will just make it a cluster f**k.

As for the dissent, I can only explain how I approach it, I explain at the start so both captains know in advance.. I'll blow for a foul, I'll explain why, I shouldn't have to explain after that. If the player questions me again I move it forward..

The ref (certainly at county level) train and prepare as hard as players do all year, so they put the effort in too, they don't go around shouting at people or tell them they've made a mistake, most if not all ref's will apologise if they genuinely make a mistake or not see something from a angle that had a better view..

With the new rules on top of the ones that were always difficult to manage it's become harder..

Players know the consequences of their actions, and managers now, so the simply thing is to get in with it.

Probably only getting one or two dissent frees in a game now, so they are catching on

[Main Street]

Notable this weekend that the refs were not persecuting players for (allegedly) taking 4 1/2 steps.
Hopefully Coldrick and a few others take that on board.

[trileacman]

The rules need simplified, Coldrick mentioned this on a podcast recently, when put to him about having two refs, he nailed it with what I've said, there's no consistency as the rules are not defined properly and having two refs with different interpretations of the 'tackle' will just make it a cluster f**k.

As for the dissent, I can only explain how I approach it, I explain at the start so both captains know in advance.. I'll blow for a foul, I'll explain why, I shouldn't have to explain after that. If the player questions me again I move it forward..

The ref (certainly at county level) train and prepare as hard as players do all year, so they put the effort in too, they don't go around shouting at people or tell them they've made a mistake, most if not all ref's will apologise if they genuinely make a mistake or not see something from a angle that had a better view..

With the new rules on top of the ones that were always difficult to manage it's become harder..

Players know the consequences of their actions, and managers now, so the simply thing is to get in with it.

Probably only getting one or two dissent frees in a game now, so they are catching on

And yet we've piled rules change upon rule change and once the dust settles there'll be calls for more rule changes.

As a ref you've said there is no consistency yet the inter-county ref committee have regularly added to this inconsistency. We had a week were keepers were only allowed 20 secs to take a kick out, that was forgot about a few weeks later, we had a weekend where the steps rules were draconically enforced yet that has all slid away and we're back to the old interpretation once again.

Surely when these interpretations were being foisted on them the refs could have had the courage to say "look are these for the season or are we just going to employ them for a week and then forget about them?".

Have lots of time for Coldrick, I think he's a very sensible and humble referee. He's right that 2 refs would be a disaster, as you said the rule book needs to be tidied up to reduce the amount of intervention a ref has to make in a game. However the vogue at the minute is to cram more ambiguity into the rules.

[Milltown Row2]

The keeper thing went from 20 seconds out to 30 seconds and now its actually as many seconds as long as he's not taking the piss. That's not helping that fecking moan every time a keeper puts the ball down! How long ref!

What would help, and this would suit so many people would be to bring in people that have never seen the game before, teach them the rules as per rule book and let them at it...