So what do ye think of the black card rule now?

[Hound]

Had a briefing last night from referee's about the Black Card which was quite interesting.

The thing they highlighted most and said the key to the rule is 'deliberate' and '100% certainty'. The referee must be 100% certain that the act was deliberate otherwise a black card will not be shown. It explains why a few I thought to be Black Cards haven't been.

The other thing is that for the pull down black card 'there must be a clear pulling DOWN motion in the tackle'. Therefore pulling someone and them losing their footing or going to ground is not a black card!!

That's exactly how the vast majority of refs are doing it, and that's why it is a success. You need to pretty much rubgy tackle a lad to the ground or deliberately trip up his legs to get the black card. They are hard to get and easy to avoid and do not impact on the art of defending one iota. Personally I thought it was all very clear from the info and diagrams the GAA issued on the black card.

Lads who say they were afraid to tackle an onrushing attacker because of the black card are ignorant of the rules.

[Rossfan]

My view was always that if the sanction for certain fouls is severe enough then players will stop committing those fouls, which is why I was also strongly in favour of bringing the ball forward 40m for blocking quick frees etc. .

That despicable act is probably now the most cynical of them all and really fcuks up the team trying to get some advantage from a free.
Should the black one be introduced for this or should it be automatically a yellow?

[DuffleKing]

Had a briefing last night from referee's about the Black Card which was quite interesting.

The thing they highlighted most and said the key to the rule is 'deliberate' and '100% certainty'. The referee must be 100% certain that the act was deliberate otherwise a black card will not be shown. It explains why a few I thought to be Black Cards haven't been.

The other thing is that for the pull down black card 'there must be a clear pulling DOWN motion in the tackle'. Therefore pulling someone and them losing their footing or going to ground is not a black card!!

That's exactly how the vast majority of refs are doing it, and that's why it is a success. You need to pretty much rubgy tackle a lad to the ground or deliberately trip up his legs to get the black card. They are hard to get and easy to avoid and do not impact on the art of defending one iota. Personally I thought it was all very clear from the info and diagrams the GAA issued on the black card.

Lads who say they were afraid to tackle an onrushing attacker because of the black card are ignorant of the rules.

No, they are afraid from recent experience of the referee's interpretation of the... despite what every official's presentation says.

The opening weekend of club leagues in Armagh was a mixture of calamity and confusion

[Under Lights]

While taking the toss in our reserve game at the weekend the ref said that he was only going to use the black card for mouthing at him. Both teams only had a handful of subs so common sense prevailed.

[Zulu]

My view was always that if the sanction for certain fouls is severe enough then players will stop committing those fouls, which is why I was also strongly in favour of bringing the ball forward 40m for blocking quick frees etc. .

That despicable act is probably now the most cynical of them all and really fcuks up the team trying to get some advantage from a free.
Should the black one be introduced for this or should it be automatically a yellow?

I think it should be brought up the 40m as that would turn almost any free into a score-able one. That would put a stop to it immediately even late in the game.

[BennyHarp]

My view was always that if the sanction for certain fouls is severe enough then players will stop committing those fouls, which is why I was also strongly in favour of bringing the ball forward 40m for blocking quick frees etc. .

That despicable act is probably now the most cynical of them all and really fcuks up the team trying to get some advantage from a free.
Should the black one be introduced for this or should it be automatically a yellow?

I think it should be brought up the 40m as that would turn almost any free into a score-able one. That would put a stop to it immediately even late in the game.

Why not just come up with a new sport with the rules that you would like?

[Zulu]

Ridiculous comment. All sports have changed fundamental aspects of their games to address issues, the GAA should be no different. What does three or four players grappling for the ball off an opponent to kick their free add to our games?

[BennyHarp]

Ridiculous comment. All sports have changed fundamental aspects of their games to address issues, the GAA should be no different. What does three or four players grappling for the ball off an opponent to kick their free add to our games?

Ah ffs if we are changing rules for small things like that then we'd never please everyone and the game would be nothing like our game. Adding more rules isnt always the answer you know!

[Zulu]

I accept that but how do you propose to stop the daft and frustrating things that happen in a game if we don't punish them appropriately? If that 40m rule was brought in then a player fouled would never again have lads slowing it down so defenders could filter back and make a score more difficult. I don't see how that rule would in anyway alter the game bar cut out some of the shite we see around taking frees. If that was brought in I'd be happy to leave it at that but I'd never rule out more changes if it can help the game.

[Rossfan]

Some oul style bucks just want to go back to non stop foulin it seems.

[BennyHarp]

Some oul style bucks just want to go back to non stop foulin it seems.

Some of these young bucks want to change the rules every time a high profile foul occurs it seems.

[Syferus]

Some oul style bucks just want to go back to non stop foulin it seems.

Some of these young bucks want to change the rules every time a high profile foul occurs it seems.

You still seem to be unaware that the black card was passed by Congress before Seaneen Cavanagh did his best Paul O'Connell impression on Conor McManus.

[BennyHarp]

Some oul style bucks just want to go back to non stop foulin it seems.

Some of these young bucks want to change the rules every time a high profile foul occurs it seems.

You still seem to be unaware that the black card was passed by Congress before Seaneen Cavanagh did his best Paul O'Connell impression on Conor McManus.

Ok, so what about bringing the ball up 40m? Have I missed something or has that been passed? Once we start tinkering with the rules to get perfection then we run the risk of creating a game we didn't want.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mdwAkWvWMw

[Zulu]

Yes, because punishing the shitehawkery that can occur around frees would transform football into a vastly different sport Bear in mind too that the 40m punishment isn't a new rule just a more severe version of an existing one. But your probably right, if that was voted in the manliness would be taken out and the underage coaches and sandwich makers would walk away in droves bemoaning what had become of our great game.

[BennyHarp]

Yes, because punishing the shitehawkery that can occur around frees would transform football into a vastly different sport Bear in mind too that the 40m punishment isn't a new rule just a more severe version of an existing one. But your probably right, if that was voted in the manliness would be taken out and the underage coaches and sandwich makers would walk away in droves bemoaning what had become of our great game.

I have never once mentioned anything to do with manliness. But you, of course, as always are right, the spectacle of stopping the game every 3 mins (because there's so many rules) moving the ball 40m into the scoring area, waiting until the dead ball specialist (probably the goalkeeper) sets themselves to take a free pot shot a goal would have the turnstiles ticking and the TV audiences enthralled. There'd be mountains of scores and everyone would be happy. But someone would moan (probably Joe Brolly) that half the game is just watching keepers kick frees, but you'd introduce a new rule to ban keepers kicking frees, then most likely another new rule to put a 30 second clock on free takers, etc etc until perfection in the game was achieved and we had the most regulated game in modern sport.

All I'm arguing is, keep it as simple as possible and enforce the rules as they stand. The problem was never really the rules, it was the implementation of the rules - introducing more rules doesn't solve that problem.