Gaelic Football - Rules & Regulations discussion/clarification

[David McKeown]

Yeah thats the only true downside. The 3v3 definitely key to the scoring bonanza

Im not convinced its that simple particularly at county level. The 2 point try offers an incentive to try from distance and a reason for teams to not simply allow uncontested high risk shots.  If you remove those things I imagine teams will keep the football even more in order to work easier chances inside whilst defences will drop deeper to try and prevent same.  I feel it could make the game worse as it becomes a real game of cat and mouse.  Its certainly something that I think needs trialled extensively before being brought in.

[DaleCooper]

Stopping 3 extra men flooding back into defence leave gaps vs what we were used to , allowing less pass intercepts in attacking zone and more gaps to play in.

Of course its too small a sample to be definitive at this stage but it seems simple cause and effect.

[David McKeown]

Stopping 3 extra men flooding back into defence leave gaps vs what we were used to , allowing less pass intercepts in attacking zone and more gaps to play in.

Of course its too small a sample to be definitive at this stage but it seems simple cause and effect.

It cant be cause and effect though because theres rule that is fundamentally impacting on the cause that is there presently. If its removed it doesnt follow that the same pattern will continue.

At the minute statistically speaking if you have a better than 40% chance of scoring a 2 pointer you are better to try that shot than to hold the ball and try and work an opportunity to score a say near 80% one point score. Conversely teams are better to try and force you to eschew the 2 point try in favour of the one.   If you remove that 2 point incentive what is equally likely to happen is that a lot of teams will defend deeper making the longer supposedly harder shots slightly easier but reducing the space inside to reduce the ease of creating high percentage shots.  The consequence of that is teams may become more conservative in their approach not wanting to shoot the low percentage shot from distance because there is not an incentive to do so and instead focusing on keeping the ball in tight spaces and recycling it to create higher percentage shots that are harder to come by.

What I am trying to say is that we don't know what a removal of the 2 point score would with the 3v3 rule intact. It might result in more scores but equally it may result in more passive play as teams defend deeper whilst attacking teams become more patient in looking for a score.  Thats why I would be reluctant to just say ditch the 2 point rule even though I dont like it
 

[DaleCooper]

Im with ya now, the rules were considered in "holistic" terms so there is a bit of symbiosis at play indeed.

Theres really no substitute for more games. Even comparing "what if" regarding Donegal V Kerry with old points it's incomparable as whole dynamic changes. Kerry wouldn't necessarily attempt many of those shots in old rules.

[JoG2]

Im with ya now, the rules were considered in "holistic" terms so there is a bit of symbiosis at play indeed.

Theres really no substitute for more games. Even comparing "what if" regarding Donegal V Kerry with old points it's incomparable as whole dynamic changes. Kerry wouldn't necessarily attempt many of those shots in old rules.

Have you taken term time Dale?

[johnnycool]

Stopping 3 extra men flooding back into defence leave gaps vs what we were used to , allowing less pass intercepts in attacking zone and more gaps to play in.

Of course its too small a sample to be definitive at this stage but it seems simple cause and effect.

It cant be cause and effect though because theres rule that is fundamentally impacting on the cause that is there presently. If its removed it doesnt follow that the same pattern will continue.

At the minute statistically speaking if you have a better than 40% chance of scoring a 2 pointer you are better to try that shot than to hold the ball and try and work an opportunity to score a say near 80% one point score. Conversely teams are better to try and force you to eschew the 2 point try in favour of the one.   If you remove that 2 point incentive what is equally likely to happen is that a lot of teams will defend deeper making the longer supposedly harder shots slightly easier but reducing the space inside to reduce the ease of creating high percentage shots.  The consequence of that is teams may become more conservative in their approach not wanting to shoot the low percentage shot from distance because there is not an incentive to do so and instead focusing on keeping the ball in tight spaces and recycling it to create higher percentage shots that are harder to come by.

What I am trying to say is that we don't know what a removal of the 2 point score would with the 3v3 rule intact. It might result in more scores but equally it may result in more passive play as teams defend deeper whilst attacking teams become more patient in looking for a score.  Thats why I would be reluctant to just say ditch the 2 point rule even though I dont like it
 

Most coaches and their tribe of backroom staff and statisticians are risk averse and if that figure of 40% success rate when taking on a 2 pointer is accurate you can be sure coaches aren't encouraging it.

Yet if you look at the AI final the 2 pointer was the reason Kerry had such a big winning margin over Donegal. It's not the reason they won as they were much the better team.

Under previous rules Donegal were probably looking at going into the final 10 minutes maybe 2 or 3 points down even when being outplayed for large parts of the game and maybe would have changed things up a bit for a final push to the end. The margin and the use of the 2 pointers by Kerry meant that they'd no chance of of closing the gap and TBH they never really looked like having a real go at Kerry which for me is poor management from Jim when the game was going away from them.
He'd thrown the towel in.

Donegal did everything to avoid a shootout with Kerry, but Kerry went and had their shootout anyway.

The new rules favour the teams with the best scoring forwards, is there anything wrong with that?

Time to encourage scoring forwards to go for scores and time to teach lads how to defend one-on-one.

[DaleCooper]

"Under previous rules Donegal were probably looking at going into the final 10 minutes maybe 2 or 3 points down even when being outplayed for large parts of the game"

You cant make that assumption though, as Kerrys game plan would have changed and maybe they may have went more direct for goals.

[EoinW]

Funny how the Donegal/Kerry final was considered too close to call pre-game, yet 70 minutes later everyone acts like a Kerry win was always a foregone conclusion.  The best Donegal could do was to stay close and steal it at the end.  Like they stole the 2014 Semi Final against Dublin?

The narrative I'm encountering now is that Kerry plays the game the way it was suppose to be played and teams, like Donegal, can only compete with ultra defensive puke football.  A handy narrative to justify every 2025 rule change.

How about the flip side? Kerry could NOT dominate under the traditional rules, therefore those rules had to be changed.

[Would ye whist]

A technical/procedural question. If a player commits a black card infraction, ref gives a free, player gets up and takes a quick free. The ref allows the quick free but waits for play to stop again before giving the offender a black card, can a ref do this?

[thewobbler]

The flip side that you're speaking of Eoin, isn't  "Kerry". It was every school, club and county team in Ireland. It wasn't possible to play positive, front-foot football under the old rules until legs got tired. Any attempt to do so, ended in failure. Possession was too hard to regain, and the "all out attack" team always entered the final quarter with nothing left in the tank, and nowhere near the scores on the board to compensate.

I reckon you should desist from trying to make this about Kerry. The new rules aren't and never were about Kerry. They were about positive play and attacking variety. Kerry have always been able to adapt quicker than anyone else to changes in how football is played, and this season they'd the bonus of having the Cliffords. So it's no surprise that they were first out of blocks.

The real outcome of the rules though, we won't know for another season or two. The gap is unlikely to increase. Everyone else just takes a little longer to work things out.

[thewobbler]

A technical/procedural question. If a player commits a black card infraction, ref gives a free, player gets up and takes a quick free. The ref allows the quick free but waits for play to stop again before giving the offender a black card, can a ref do this?

I don't see how this would be an issue. The last thing the rules would want is a "double jeopardy" scenario where cynical fouls can't be punished appropriately because the game too quickly.

[Armagh18]

A technical/procedural question. If a player commits a black card infraction, ref gives a free, player gets up and takes a quick free. The ref allows the quick free but waits for play to stop again before giving the offender a black card, can a ref do this?

Could be a tricky one, obviously you dont want a team to lose the chance of a quick free/solo and go especially if it leads to a scoring chance, but what if the player who should have been black carded ends up making a goal line block at the end of that play?

[Rossfan]

"Traditional rules "?
How long does a rule have to be in operation before it becomes a traditional rule?
"Kerry could not dominate under traditional rules"....
38 All Irelands before the FRC...
Two 4 in a rows, don't know how many 3 in a rows.

[twohands!!!]

"Traditional rules "?
How long does a rule have to be in operation before it becomes a traditional rule?
"Kerry could not dominate under traditional rules"....
38 All Irelands before the FRC...
Two 4 in a rows, don't know how many 3 in a rows.

If 38 All-Ireland was Kerry not dominating under the traditional rules, Christ knows how many Sams they would have if they had been able to dominate under the old rules.

I especially love the notion that the FRC were rewriting the rules to suit Kerry.

The only thing I'm wondering is how Kerry managed to get so many secret lovers of Kerry football from Ulster, Leinster and Connacht plus Colm Collins of Clare (who has proably suffered more than most coming up against against Kerry in the Muster Championship so often ) on the FRC to draft the Kerry friendly rules.

[Wildweasel74]

At the end of the day Kerry got 64 clubs in football. Who's got more, Dublin, Cork, anybody else? It's there first priority down there. Up in Derry alot of people biggest priority soccer, then fball with hurling after. Derry city with 100k very little interest in Gaelic outside of a few small areas in the city. Rest of the county about 50% are not nationalists  and don't play. That's a massive cut in any potential numbers. Derry got 40 odd fball clubs alot small. So if u got the playing numbers u always be to the fore. Don't know what Corks excuse is, outside been 70% a hurling county.