Cynical and Negative Armagh?

[seafoid]

Watching Tyrone v Mayo I found myself, as usual shouting for fouls on Mayo players. Then I decided to try to switch my head the other way and sure enough I saw many fouls the other way and a definite black card that should have been given against a Mayo forward.

The problem is that almost every challenge is illegal and every contentious challenge is an 'everyone in' event. How can a ref in all fairness cope with that?

GF is in a bit of a cul de sac. It's up to the GAA to reorient it.
Or else move to rugby league and forget about the pussyfooting around the subject.


I agree with Benny Coulter's view on this.  Linden had it a while ago

"  a depressing time for a forward. I could understand Benny's frustration, absolutely, not being able to express himself and show his ability, instead having to track back and tackle, tackle, tackle and then being nearly too exhausted to have the energy to do what you're supposed to do."

and he said it when he retired


"There are games you got to at club level where two teams are playing defensive systems and it is ridiculous at times," Coulter said.
"I was even reading stuff the other day, colleges games where they were playing two sweepers."When we were playing for St Mark's (Warrenpoint) in '96 or '97 you just went out and played football, and the better man won, but, now, even at minor level it's down to tactics and crap like that.
"There is too much time spent in the gym and crap like that, or in front of tvs watching stuff."Maybe the likes of 'Skinner' (Eoin) Bradley he'd be a player I'd pay in to watch because he is that unpredictable."He is the type of fella that just plays off the cuff and does his own thing."With a lot of county footballers it's more to do with how fit you are, stuff like that – it sickens me too at times.

That minor goal for Mayobridge was pure class

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YGx0ENc4ZQ

and today's forwards aren't as good at kicking points, as evidenced by the Australia Compromise rules matches. Not even the legendary Cregger can do it.   

[ck]

The black card has to be only the start.
Personally I would bring in the sin bin for 2 fouls and I would only allow a max of 8 players inside your own 45. A black card offence could also be a 13m free.

No-one is saying take the physicality out of the game. There's a clear difference in physicality, hard, fair and square on the shoulder but not pulling, dragging and cynicism. Equally I would come down hard on diving. Forwards holding on to defenders arms and hitting the deck! 
This should be a 13m free for the defenders team.

[armaghniac]

The black card has to be only the start.
Personally I would bring in the sin bin for 2 fouls and I would only allow a max of 8 players inside your own 45. A black card offence could also be a 13m free.

8 players would be too restrictive to be workable, the suggestion of having 4 players min in a half is more feasible or perhaps a restriction on the number that could retreat beyond your own 45.

[Jell 0 Biafra]

Wouldn't be at all in favor of any rule that says you can only have x amount of players in your 45.  Defense is part of the game.  Donegal do it brilliantly, and much as it pains me to say, were excellent to watch dismantle Dublin on the counter last year.

Penalizing dragging and standing in front of the freetaker, on the other hand, with meaningful punishment--great ideas.

In general when it comes to rule changes, I think about the back-pass rule in soccer.  You never see a free being given for it, because an indirect free in the box is far worse than the keeper losing possession by just hoofing it up as far as he can.   That should be the model for new rules--make it undesirable to give up a free for the behaviour we want to prevent, rather than bringing in a rule that requires constant punishment from the officials.

[tippabu]

Didn't read all the posts but here's my take from our first game against them. And maybe with us being mostly on top in the second half v them they could have changed things for the wexford game.

There was very little cynicism from them in the game, few off the ball things but both teams were at it, nothing over the top though. We could have been more cynical late on for clarkes scores and fouled outside the scoring zone.

Defensive.....like everyone else these days both teams set up very defensively, but where as we mainly once turned over the ball attacked with two half backs and one sitting getting numbers up armagh when turning it it still left 3 or 4 players back sweeping along with players marking whoever stayed up from us

[mackers]

The black card has to be only the start.
Personally I would bring in the sin bin for 2 fouls and I would only allow a max of 8 players inside your own 45. A black card offence could also be a 13m free.

No-one is saying take the physicality out of the game. There's a clear difference in physicality, hard, fair and square on the shoulder but not pulling, dragging and cynicism. Equally I would come down hard on diving. Forwards holding on to defenders arms and hitting the deck! 
This should be a 13m free for the defenders team.

These ideas are OK when we are debating this on the forum.  In reality though how can we expect a referee to enforce these things?  We'd need about three referees on the field to police all this stuff.

[armaghniac]

I think the maximum number of players could be enforced with the aid of linesmen and the like. But other aspects of refereeing are very difficult, even if the many referees on the ditch see everything.

[AZOffaly]

Didn't read all the posts but here's my take from our first game against them. And maybe with us being mostly on top in the second half v them they could have changed things for the wexford game.

There was very little cynicism from them in the game, few off the ball things but both teams were at it, nothing over the top though. We could have been more cynical late on for clarkes scores and fouled outside the scoring zone.

Defensive.....like everyone else these days both teams set up very defensively, but where as we mainly once turned over the ball attacked with two half backs and one sitting getting numbers up armagh when turning it it still left 3 or 4 players back sweeping along with players marking whoever stayed up from us

To me that's the key. If you defend in numbers, but swiftly commit players to the attack when you get the ball, then that's not overly negative at all. If you defend in numbers, and keep those men back even when you are attacking, then that is negative.

Neither of them are cynical, cynicism is something very different.

[sheamy]

What starts out as a discussion about persistent fouling goes off on a dozen tangents once the 'c' word is used.

The ability to move players en masse around a pitch is anything but cynical. It's smart football if the best of defensive play can be combined with the best of attacking play.

The problem is that in Gaelic football it still pays to foul. Many teams who are winning are committing between 30-40 fouls per game. The penalties applied by referees do not stack up against the rate of fouling. Referees simply need to implement their own directives and rules instead of the ad hoc, game by game method we usually encounter.

That's the issue here so let's stick to that.

[AZOffaly]

Yep, I agree. Defensive strategies, or counter attacking strategies are not cynical. In fact most of the cynical play I've seen in the past few years, certainly before the black card, happened in the opposition half when the ball was turned over. Forwards dragging down breaking half backs is a brutal sight.

[Croí na hÉireann]

Watching Tyrone v Mayo I found myself, as usual shouting for fouls on Mayo players. Then I decided to try to switch my head the other way and sure enough I saw many fouls the other way and a definite black card that should have been given against a Mayo forward.

The problem is that almost every challenge is illegal and every contentious challenge is an 'everyone in' event. How can a ref in all fairness cope with that?

Correct, but we want to keep gaelic a contact sport.

So how do we define the tackle but keep the contact/physical element?

[brokencrossbar1]

Watching Tyrone v Mayo I found myself, as usual shouting for fouls on Mayo players. Then I decided to try to switch my head the other way and sure enough I saw many fouls the other way and a definite black card that should have been given against a Mayo forward.

The problem is that almost every challenge is illegal and every contentious challenge is an 'everyone in' event. How can a ref in all fairness cope with that?

Correct, but we want to keep gaelic a contact sport.

So how do we define the tackle but keep the contact/physical element?

The tackle in my view is pretty clear cut in football and does involve physical contact but the problem is not the definition but the instruction and coaching of it and implementation of the rules as per the rule book. 

[Zulu]

The one thing we can all agree on is that we can't agree on anything. There certainly are issues with the amount of fouls but then if you punish that (i.e like a basketball team penalty for X amount of fouls) we have the problem of refereeing standards or diving. I think there are many issues that are feeding into a big problem. The structure of the season is an issue (not really an issue in hurling), the standard of refereeing (again not as much an issue in hurling), the nature of the tackle in football and fact that managers have cottoned on to the reality if everyone drops back when you lose possession the opposition will have a hell of a time creating scores.

For me football is the perfect storm of a sport, it has pretty much everything you'd want in a game both to play and watch but the end product is getting increasingly unattractive and I would say managers, players, supporters and administrators are doing more to harm the game than help it with current attitudes.

[armaghniac]

The tackle in my view is pretty clear cut in football and does involve physical contact 

Your tackles did involve physical contact for sure.

[Croí na hÉireann]

Watching Tyrone v Mayo I found myself, as usual shouting for fouls on Mayo players. Then I decided to try to switch my head the other way and sure enough I saw many fouls the other way and a definite black card that should have been given against a Mayo forward.

The problem is that almost every challenge is illegal and every contentious challenge is an 'everyone in' event. How can a ref in all fairness cope with that?

Correct, but we want to keep gaelic a contact sport.

So how do we define the tackle but keep the contact/physical element?

The tackle in my view is pretty clear cut in football and does involve physical contact but the problem is not the definition but the instruction and coaching of it and implementation of the rules as per the rule book.

So, for instance, how do we police the near hand tackle (which inevitably involves grabbing the arm to slow down the opponent as opposed to attempting to dispossess the ball)?