Arrivederci negative football

[Jinxy]

watching Dublin V Kildare on Saturday, the entire steps issue did come into my head, especially Jack Mccaffrey, it appeared that he was taking a lot more steps than five, more like eight or ten, Paul Earley in the commentary box was so enamored by his speed that he was oblivious to the steps issue. Mccaffrey was not the only one, but he was pretty obvious.

Going forward, under the current rules, it will be difficult to train/recruit kids to become backs.

Nah, sure the fatter lads who can't kick the ball properly will be forced to become defenders.
That's how it works.

[AZOffaly]

watching Dublin V Kildare on Saturday, the entire steps issue did come into my head, especially Jack Mccaffrey, it appeared that he was taking a lot more steps than five, more like eight or ten, Paul Earley in the commentary box was so enamored by his speed that he was oblivious to the steps issue. Mccaffrey was not the only one, but he was pretty obvious.

Going forward, under the current rules, it will be difficult to train/recruit kids to become backs.

Nah, sure the fatter lads who can't kick the ball properly will be forced to become defenders.
That's how it works.

That's how it always worked.

[brokencrossbar1]

watching Dublin V Kildare on Saturday, the entire steps issue did come into my head, especially Jack Mccaffrey, it appeared that he was taking a lot more steps than five, more like eight or ten, Paul Earley in the commentary box was so enamored by his speed that he was oblivious to the steps issue. Mccaffrey was not the only one, but he was pretty obvious.

Going forward, under the current rules, it will be difficult to train/recruit kids to become backs.

Nah, sure the fatter lads who can't kick the ball properly will be forced to become defenders.
That's how it works.

That's how it always worked.

How did I ever play full forward then!!!

[AZOffaly]

Or Full forward. In the old days the full back and full forward could literally have swapped jersies and no one would have known.

[brokencrossbar1]

Or Full forward. In the old days the full back and full forward could literally have swapped jersies and no one would have known.

f**ker!

[haranguerer]

If you limit forwards to 4 steps as per the rules that would fairly put manners on them. Backs have an almost impossible task now.

Spot on Seanie - the lack of clarity and enforcement of the steps rule is a massive contributor to most of the fouling in our game.

[haranguerer]

I really think that the high scores are exposing that defenders can't defend anymore. They've been conditioned to swarming, the cheap foul, get organised, etc etc. The black card will make them learn again the basics of defending. Anticipation, controlled aggression, timing, tackling the ball.

You think they could before the blanket defence etc? There was much more (unpunished) defensive fouling in gaelic football in the past, and a lot of the balls being 'let in' were 50/50. As the skills improved, it became much harder to defend. My point is, its all a progression, I disagree strongly that some defensive 'skills' were somehow lost with the advent of the blanket defence etc.

[AZOffaly]

I think that before blanket defenses, or the game plans which saw a huge filtering back of players when the ball is lost, defenders had to defend a lot more man on man. That meant they had to be good at blocking, tackling and generally making life difficult for the forward. When the swarm defences came in, the defensive skills changed slightly. But I absolutely think that when the emphasis changed to defensive organisation, funnelling back, and getting 'set up' in your system, players were told to foul quickly and as cheaply as possible to allow for this recovery. Especially after a turnover of possession.

This then, in my opinion anyway, led to players neglecting the 'art' of tackling, and being more comfortable within a system where they would have loads of help and 'crowd' out attackers.

[haranguerer]

I understand what you're saying, but I dont think the promotion of one (massed defences) led to the neglect of the other (tackling). Tackling improved throughout, all round defensive skills improved throughout. I think perhaps you are looking at pre blanket tackling with rose tinted shades. The biggest difference for me is a crackdown on fouling, which if one on one with good ball coming in, is pretty mcuh necessary to stop an attacker, well, at least in the current state where they'll have as many steps as they want to get by you.

[AZOffaly]

I understand what you're saying, but I dont think the promotion of one (massed defences) led to the neglect of the other (tackling). Tackling improved throughout, all round defensive skills improved throughout. I think perhaps you are looking at pre blanket tackling with rose tinted shades. The biggest difference for me is a crackdown on fouling, which if one on one with good ball coming in, is pretty mcuh necessary to stop an attacker, well, at least in the current state where they'll have as many steps as they want to get by you.

I don't think individual tacking improved a bit. I think defensive systems and gang tackling was brought to a new level. If individual tackling had improved, people wouldn't be struggling badly. There may be an element of rose tinted glasses in my view, but I can honestly say in all my time playing I was rarely dragged down when there was no immediate danger. (With me, that could be argued to be all the time). Defenders hassled, harried, stuck their hand in, hit you a clatter, tried to block the kick etc etc. The lazy behaviour I'm talking about seems to me to be a relatively recent (5 - 10 years) introduction and I believe it was coached into teams to allow defenses get organised. The problem is that if you are doing that all the time, you forget how to do the other.

[haranguerer]

It did - it had to. Mantras like 'near hand', fwds grabbing onto a mans arm if left in too long all forced tackling to imporve, but mainly:

What happens now is that the tackling you call hassling, hitting you a clatter, etc, are all frees. In days gone by, there were rarely attempts to play the ball, the tackler just 'stuck the hand in' anywhere, and clawed away, the hope was to disrupt the forward enough that he'd lose possession or do something stupid, very little focus was on the ball. Try that in todays game, they're all frees, and rightly so. Now too, most of those frees will be scores. The defender has to let the forward go when they never had to before. And if you see blocking less now, thats nothng to do with worsening defences, its improving forwards, because 95% of blocks are the forwards fault, very few are 'made' by the defender.

People are struggling becuase the game continues to evolve. That 'tackling' is now fouling. The natural response of givng the forward as many steps as he wanted to evade said 'tackling' in the hope of balancing things up is now out of place. It will evolve too (hopefully by having a time limit instead of steps which is then strictly enforced), and equilibrium will be restored.

[screenexile]

Or Full forward. In the old days the full back and full forward could literally have swapped jersies and no one would have known.

That's a fair call... my one and only foray into County Football I was wearing no. 14 and then with our Full Back suffering from flu before the match I got hooked all the way back into the FB line again. Not that I was complaining I'd never played FF before or since and I was shitting myself!

That was the year Paddy Bradley decided to focus on Colleges football rather than play for our U21s!!

[Zulu]

I agree with haranguerer here, in days gone by often the first 'skill' of defending was to get fist full of an attackers jersey and not let it go for the day. The second one, as haranguerer says was to wildly swing away at the forward in the hope of maybe hitting the ball but if not the arms or body would do. I think defending has improved immeasurably but when you can't foul as much and the quality of the ball in is much better then more scores accrue.

On a related point, why is a high scoring hurling game brilliant and 12 steps being allowed less of an issue for football fans but a high scoring football match and 6 steps in a sign that football  is becoming basketball?

[smort]

Great point zulu. I'm not the biggest fan of hurling, I still watch it and enjoy the bigger games but I have often thought of it being a bit basketball like. Last years hurling championship was fantastic with high scoring, competitive games which were lauded from all quarters. Now that the same is happening in the football it is being criticised. Baffling.

[screenexile]

I agree with haranguerer here, in days gone by often the first 'skill' of defending was to get fist full of an attackers jersey and not let it go for the day. The second one, as haranguerer says was to wildly swing away at the forward in the hope of maybe hitting the ball but if not the arms or body would do. I think defending has improved immeasurably but when you can't foul as much and the quality of the ball in is much better then more scores accrue.

On a related point, why is a high scoring hurling game brilliant and 12 steps being allowed less of an issue for football fans but a high scoring football match and 6 steps in a sign that football  is becoming basketball?

I agree... Tony Scullion and Kieran McKeever were 2 of the best defenders I've ever seen and neither were blessed with pace but they had great awareness, anticipation and precision to have that knack of being there at the right time.

There aren't many players you would say that about anymore as all they do now is fill space and the ball just arrives at one or other of the 3 men in front of the full back line!!