No hand pass problem says Duffy

[zoyler]

The more things change the more they remain the same!1  Any of the other old heads on this board remember an AISF involving Armagh when the ref - I think it was Collins - decided that every bodys handpass was fine except for Colm McKinstrs?  He drove Colm mad and yet nobody else was able to tell him what he was doing differently to everybody else!

[Armaghgeddon]

In all fairness the referee didnt cost Derry the game. He made bad decisions for both teams, and it was his first game enforcing the new rules. I would be more bothered if one team benefitted moreso than the other.

[Main Street]

[guevara]

This rule has been brought about to appease idiots like Pat Spillane & Bernard Flynn who constantly cry in the media about Northern teams preference for the short hand game.

In what way does this quicken up the game of football??........None whatsoever, if anything it actually slows it down.
Teams like Armagh & Tyrone have  developed their team strategy around superior fitness levels, short sharp bursts out of defence via the hand pass & overlapping runs that turn defence into attack in a matter of seconds, while frustrating opposing teams by dropping extra defenders in front of their half back line to force the other team to try & break them down in less space than they are normally accustomed to.

Yesterdays game perfectly demonstrated this in Celtic Park. Derry looked clueless in attack whereas Armagh seemed to find scores at will .
I agree it isnt pretty to watch as Armagh use it to the extreme. But teams like Cork & Kildare have used it in recent seasons & it has proven to be a beneficial tactic.
What guys like Spillane fail to see is its a system that demands more from players in terms of fitness, work rate & contribution to the game.
Corner forwards no longer just sit & wait on ball coming in & kicking scores. They work , harry & tackle back in their own half to upset opposing players & cause as many turnovers as possible.

The new rule in my opinion will only cause more headaches for an organisation more intent on keeping its elder membesrs happy than actually trying to make its game better.

[Orior]

Julian Clary and Graham Norton were practising fisting yesterday in a park in central London.


Well, its what I heard anyway.

[rosnarun]

Duffy says no problem?

+1
an arrogant bastard

[Onlooker]

The more I see or read of Messrs. Cooney & Duffy, the less confidence I have in either of them.  Clearly, neither of them were a match yesterday or they would have seen that there is a huge problem with this new handpass rule. Corrective action will have to be taken ASAP.

[DuffleKing]

There is going to be some craic with club football up and down the country this weekend.
imagine the balls some of the comanches pretending to be club refs are going to make of matches...

[orangeman]

I think we're over reactiung a bit here. What else do you think Padraig Duffy was going to say ?


In addition and I've made the point already - it was our good delegates that brought these new rules in - ok if the top table says jump, everybody apart from Mark Conway and very few others hout "how high?" - but ultimately these rule changes were put to a vote and the delgates approved them.




So it's not all Duffy's fault. Or the refs either.

[DuffleKing]

congress should not be making decisions on playing rules changes. sure what would they know about it?

[Jinxy]

All the decent rule changes that were knocked back and this nonsense somehow makes it through.

[jodyb]

What in the name of Jesus was wrong with the game in the first instance? The rules are tampered with that often, referees cant administer them, they cahnge every f#ckin year! Refs dont even remember older established rules like short frees etc and are brutally inconsistent with them. As another poster pointed out, Deegan was so hung up on blowing up perfectly legitimate handpasses yesterday that he completely forgot the more important rule of carding for repeated and persistent fouling. If he had done so, there would have been more see the line than skinner. Either that, or the resultant yellows would have opened the game up. 

[adevvabr]

Played in a club game yesterday where the ref told both teams beforehand that he was gonna be lenient with new handpass rule and wasnt gonna blow for any illegal handpass unless it was a clear throw. I think both teams were delighted and fair play to the ref for showing some common sense and not ruining the game like the the so called "elite" referees did yesterday!!

[jodyb]

Played in a club game yesterday where the ref told both teams beforehand that he was gonna be lenient with new handpass rule and wasnt gonna blow for any illegal handpass unless it was a clear throw. I think both teams were delighted and fair play to the ref for showing some common sense and not ruining the game like the the so called "elite" referees did yesterday!!

Lets get him promoted to intercounty duty at once....

[ONeill]

The rule is as simple as can be, you can strike the ball with the closed fist, or you strike the ball with the underhand, provided there is a striking action.

It's this bit that gets me. We now need a definition of a 'strike'. Surely, unless you're throwing the ball, every movement from one hand to the ball which is in the other hand in order to move it to another location is striking it. Is a flick not a strike? What's a flick then? How long does the strike's span have to be? What if you're good at it and do a long to medium strike very quickly?

Stevie McDonnell said yesterday that the ref who came down during the week showed them what was a 'good' strike and a 'bad' strike but the players couldn't tell the difference.

Leave it as it is or if you really want to deal with it, only allow 3 handpasses in succession but that discriminates against numerically challenged refs, as well as giving them something else to be watching out for.

They should've just said NO THROWING THE BALL on this park.