Positive proposals at last to address the spectacle of Gaelic Football

[Itchy]

Read the first two paragraphs again. Think of football and tbink of hurling and why we are having exciting hurling and bite fests in football. Then like me you might think aidan is talking shite. Yes people do want high fielding and man to man contests in my opinion.

Of course we do! But them days are gone! And no amount of rules are going to make this happen unless we ban the hand pass completely!

Well we will have to see because the way it's going no one will turn up to watch the rubbish being played

[Rossfan]

Read the first two paragraphs again. Think of football and tbink of hurling and why we are having exciting hurling and bite fests in football. Then like me you might think aidan is talking shite. Yes people do want high fielding and man to man contests in my opinion.

Of course we do! .....unless we ban the hand pass completely!

Ah sure we'd only have FOOTball then and seemingly that can't be allowed to hspoen

[Eamonnca1]

Brolly on the new handpass rule. He's agen it.

Joe Brolly: 'A world where Derry never won the All-Ireland is a world I want no part of'

It is perhaps the most famous goal in the history of Gaelic football. It is July 6, 1991. The third replay of the Leinster Championship match between Meath and Dublin is in injury-time, there are 90 seconds to go, and Meath are trailing by three points, 0-15 to 1-9. The roar from the crowd, transfixed after three epic draws in the previous month, is deafening.

David Beggy wins the ball out near the middle of the field on the left touchline. "It's still possible," says Ger Canning, as Beggy handpasses it to Kevin Foley, racing through from wing-back. (Handpass number 1.)

"Foley to Gillick," says Canning. (Handpass number 2.)

"Gillick to Tommy Dowd." (Handpass number 3.) "A lot of poor marking by Dublin," says Canning as Tommy Dowd tears towards the 21 and the decibel level ratchets up. Dowd gives it to Colm O'Rourke (handpass number 4), changes direction slightly and takes the return pass from O'Rourke. (Handpass number 5.)

Dowd races along the 14-yard line, wrong-footing the Dublin defenders, and handpasses it to Foley who had continued his support run and is now only a few yards from goal. (Handpass number 6). Kevin Foley has never before this moment scored a goal in his long Meath career. He hits the net. The stadium seems to jump, or maybe it is the camera man. Ger Canning's voice breaks and ends in a high-pitched squeal as he roars (long before Victor Meldrew had ever thought of it), "I don't believe it." Meath win the kick-out, and David Beggy puts it over the bar. The referee blows the whistle. Meath have won. The Dubs sink to their knees, not quite believing what has happened.

As of January, when the three handpass rule comes in, that goal would be disallowed. That Meath crew was one of the great long-kicking teams. I played against them for Trinity once in a not-so-friendly friendly and we were like dogs chasing aeroplanes as the ball was skimmed from box to box with great accuracy. But like all great teams, handpassing was part of their armoury. With Dublin swamping the scoring area and only 90 seconds to go, they would never have created this brilliant goal otherwise.

Or what about arguably the greatest goal ever scored in a club championship game? You remember it: Corofin's second goal against Nemo Rangers in last year's All-Ireland club final was perhaps the most sublime goal ever seen at HQ.

With little or no space to work in, and no opportunity for a foot pass, a bewildering sequence of six perfect handpasses sucked in the Nemo defenders and like a great conjuror's trick, Martin Farragher was suddenly clean through on goal, picking his spot in the traditional Corofin manner and ending the game.

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Corofin are another superb kicking team. Against Ballintubber in the Connacht final last Sunday, they gave an overwhelming exhibition of attacking football in the third quarter, scoring 1-8 from 11 shots, and overall, ending with a typical spread of different scorers (nine). Their philosophy as a club is that every player ought to be two-footed by the age of 16. Yet when it comes to it, they can use the handpass to engineer great scores. Crucially, when they encounter a team playing a blanket defence (Ballintubber for example dropped very deep and played with two sweepers in the scoring zone), their high skill levels allow them to adapt.

The handpass rule comes about after a sort of aul lads' discussion about the state of the game in the pub.

"It's handpassing that is ruining the game lads."

"You're dead right, it should be called hand-ball."

"Sure the Dubs are the worst offenders."

"These boys can't even kick the ball any more" etc etc.

The problem is that the problem has been wrongly diagnosed. As a frustrated member of the rules committee said to me last week: "They have diagnosed the symptom, not the illness."

The illness is of course the zonal defence/blanket defence/sweeper system. Robbed of the capability to break through the defensive zone with clever handpassing, carefully timed runs, and expert shooting, the rule has the perverse effect of making it even easier for the blanket defending team.

Let us take Monaghan's breakthrough goal against Tyrone in this year's Ulster Championship: Tyrone have 13 men inside their own '45. Vinny Corey streaks down the left flank of the Tyrone zone, takes a handpass and gives a handpass. Monaghan's movement is superb. After five handpasses the zone is penetrated, Corey is put through on goal and finishes expertly to the bottom corner. Sorry lads. That's a free out. Oh well, as Mickey Harte is fond of reminding us, senior inter-county football is not about entertainment.

What about Donegal's superb opening goal against Fermanagh's ultra-defensive system in this year's Ulster final? Sorry chaps. Five handpasses. Free out to the team that has no interest in playing the game.

Let's run through another practical scenario: Dublin win possession. Carlow retreat into their 14-man zone just inside their own 45-metre line. Dublin come forward. Coming through the middle third they can either foot-pass or handpass, but they do not have the option of kick-passing to a forward inside the scoring zone so it must be short passing, whether by the hand or foot. Now they reach the defensive cordon. Instead of several handpasses and clever movement designed to open up that zone and create a scoring opportunity that must be taken quickly before the pack descends, they must now kick-pass sideways and backwards. After three handpasses, they will be forced to kick it either back or laterally since even if a team-mate has broken through in a good position, the ball can only be kicked to him and that is just not possible. Will we be even more bored? Will we be howling in frustration?

Say the fourth handpass would put the forward in on goal? Tough. His team-mate will have to turn, kick-pass it back and start all over again. The new rule (which is doomed to failure) will encourage the blanket defence and make goalscoring virtually impossible.

John McEntee - Armagh's greatest player ever and six-time All-Ireland club winner with the club team that causes the aul' lads on the Rules Committee to weep with nostalgia - thinks the proposal is ridiculous, because it severely limits the attacking team's ability to score goals. That's coming from the greatest player in the greatest kicking team the game has seen.

The philosophy behind the rule is confusing. If it is to return us to the glory days of Gaelic football, then let's pick the Kerry/Dublin golden years as a starting point. We loved that era. Couldn't get enough of it. Yet not only was intricate handpassing at the heart of almost every goal, they could even handpass the ball to the net. When the great Down team of the early '90s put Meath to the sword in the '91 final, they mixed it up beautifully, but the killer goal came after four handpasses. Without that goal, there would have been no Ulster breakthrough.

In the end, the problem with the rule is that it creates a very artificial situation, prevents imaginative interplay and works against the attacking team. If a team is three behind with five minutes to go, how are they going to break through a 14-man zone?

The most important score in the history of Derry football was Johnny McGurk's immortal point to beat the Dubs with the last kick of the game in the 1993 semi-final. That point would have been disallowed (four handpasses in the lead-up), and a free out awarded. A world where Derry never won an All-Ireland is a world I want no part of.

[manfromdelmonte]

I'm going to watch a few of those old goals again...

[Esmarelda]

Read the first two paragraphs again. Think of football and tbink of hurling and why we are having exciting hurling and bite fests in football. Then like me you might think aidan is talking shite. Yes people do want high fielding and man to man contests in my opinion.

Of course we do! .....unless we ban the hand pass completely!

Ah sure we'd only have FOOTball then and seemingly that can't be allowed to hspoen

Handball, rubby,  hurley stuff, mayowestros. Give it a rest.

[Rossfan]

Another lúlá with a humour by pass (hazard a guess from 6 Cos)

[Joe Mc Nallys Ballsack]

This is an excellent initiative by the GAA.

Anyone who wants to watch the current game permeated by 75% hand-passes should sign up for Olympic Handball.

We have to try something . The only people against the current rules are

1- Ulster GAA ( they are typically against anything anyway)
2- Inter-county managers of crap team who can pack defences and don't have any players capable of kicking the ball accurately
3- GPA- Never happy about anything unless they instigate the change
4- Sadists

If this doesn't work we need to try something else. Because the current game is only shite to watch

[Eamonnca1]

The etymology of "football" has nothing to do with using your foot to kick a ball. It's descended from games that were played by working people "on foot" as opposed to games that were played by nobles on horseback. There are about seven versions of games called football and only one of them predominantly uses the foot to deliver the ball. There's not a whole lot of kicking in Rugby football or American football.

A commonly-held myth about the origin of a word is a strange criterion to be using for designing the rules of a sport. If we were all speaking Irish and referring to the game as "Peile" I doubt if we'd be having this discussion.

In any case I don't see what people have against the handpass. As long as there's a crisp striking action it looks just fine and keeps the game moving. Why do people compare it to Basketball or Handball as if that's a pejorative? Are those sports inferior? Are they boring to watch?

[Eamonnca1]

Read the first two paragraphs again. Think of football and tbink of hurling and why we are having exciting hurling and bite fests in football. Then like me you might think aidan is talking shite. Yes people do want high fielding and man to man contests in my opinion.

Of course we do! But them days are gone! And no amount of rules are going to make this happen unless we ban the hand pass completely!

Award the mark from a kickout, that'd bring back high fielding.

[Joe Mc Nallys Ballsack]

The etymology of "football" has nothing to do with using your foot to kick a ball. It's descended from games that were played by working people "on foot" as opposed to games that were played by nobles on horseback. There are about seven versions of games called football and only one of them predominantly uses the foot to deliver the ball. There's not a whole lot of kicking in Rugby football or American football.

A commonly-held myth about the origin of a word is a strange criterion to be using for designing the rules of a sport. If we were all speaking Irish and referring to the game as "Peile" I doubt if we'd be having this discussion.

In any case I don't see what people have against the handpass. As long as there's a crisp striking action it looks just fine and keeps the game moving. Why do people compare it to Basketball or Handball as if that's a pejorative? Are those sports inferior? Are they boring to watch?

Because Gaelic Football was founded on the transferring of the ball with the foot.

Handball was founded on the transfer of the ball by hand.

The hand-pass in it's current guise has allowed dreadful county teams and equally poor club sides to somehow call themselves football teams by getting  a fitness level , a system , a tackle count and good hand-passing skills. Thus ignoring the fact that neither there club nor their county coaches were ever able to teach their players the basic skill of kicking the ball accurately

I don't want to watch teams like Carlow for example playing Gaelic Football and masquerading themselves as a semi good team playing one forward up front even against teams of their own level like Laois.

How is that what the game was ever meant to be? 75% hand-passing at inter county level was never what the game was envisaged to be .And at club level watching the sort of "Gaelic Football" the Derry championship produced this year wouldn't pass as entertainment even to the parents of the club sides involved.

The game is in crisis. Not every team wants to play like Crossmaglen or Dublin.

But the rules should favour the sides that want to score

Not the other way around.

[manfromdelmonte]

The etymology of "football" has nothing to do with using your foot to kick a ball. It's descended from games that were played by working people "on foot" as opposed to games that were played by nobles on horseback. There are about seven versions of games called football and only one of them predominantly uses the foot to deliver the ball. There's not a whole lot of kicking in Rugby football or American football.

A commonly-held myth about the origin of a word is a strange criterion to be using for designing the rules of a sport. If we were all speaking Irish and referring to the game as "Peile" I doubt if we'd be having this discussion.

In any case I don't see what people have against the handpass. As long as there's a crisp striking action it looks just fine and keeps the game moving. Why do people compare it to Basketball or Handball as if that's a pejorative? Are those sports inferior? Are they boring to watch?

Because Gaelic Football was founded on the transferring of the ball with the foot.

Handball was founded on the transfer of the ball by hand.

The hand-pass in it's current guise has allowed dreadful county teams and equally poor club sides to somehow call themselves football teams by getting  a fitness level , a system , a tackle count and good hand-passing skills. Thus ignoring the fact that neither there club nor their county coaches were ever able to teach their players the basic skill of kicking the ball accurately

I don't want to watch teams like Carlow for example playing Gaelic Football and masquerading themselves as a semi good team playing one forward up front even against teams of their own level like Laois.

How is that what the game was ever meant to be? 75% hand-passing at inter county level was never what the game was envisaged to be .And at club level watching the sort of "Gaelic Football" the Derry championship produced this year wouldn't pass as entertainment even to the parents of the club sides involved.

The game is in crisis. Not every team wants to play like Crossmaglen or Dublin.

But the rules should favour the sides that want to score

Not the other way around.

How many trophies have Carlow won with their football/handball style?

[johnnycool]

Did they ban the fisted point yet?

[Itchy]

I have to say, while I initially thought the rules were stupid I have changed my tune a bit. Firstly the game is in crisis. It is horrible to watch in 90% of games. The defensive handpassing muck is being transferred from county to every club in the country. My big issue is that like it or not we are in competition for the hearts and minds of kids. Soccer is all razzmatazz of the premier league which is often entertaining. Rugby that our kids see is exciting stuff with Ireland winning big friendlies against big teams. Football is turgid horrible stuff at the moment in most counties. Also, I think our creative skillful players would rather be at home milking the cows rather than play in these boring systems that are being rolled out by coaches.

So we have to try something and we have every right to try something.

The handpass rule is an interesting one. I was thinking about what would I do if I were a coach. Well for one I know that a close in kick pass is not as accurate as a close in hand pass so I would personally push up an extra player or two and try and turn teams over higher up the pitch. The net effect of this would be to leave space in my defence so if a long ball did get out of the opponents defence, there would be a good chance for my opponent to get a score. I can see this rule helping to make football a better spectacle. It may need tweaking but why not try it.

What would sicken a mans hole is to listen to all these people right out objecting to it, as if football is a great sport altogether and we should leave as is. That is real madness.

[joemamas]

I have to say, while I initially thought the rules were stupid I have changed my tune a bit. Firstly the game is in crisis. It is horrible to watch in 90% of games. The defensive handpassing muck is being transferred from county to every club in the country. My big issue is that like it or not we are in competition for the hearts and minds of kids. Soccer is all razzmatazz of the premier league which is often entertaining. Rugby that our kids see is exciting stuff with Ireland winning big friendlies against big teams. Football is turgid horrible stuff at the moment in most counties. Also, I think our creative skillful players would rather be at home milking the cows rather than play in these boring systems that are being rolled out by coaches.

So we have to try something and we have every right to try something.

The handpass rule is an interesting one. I was thinking about what would I do if I were a coach. Well for one I know that a close in kick pass is not as accurate as a close in hand pass so I would personally push up an extra player or two and try and turn teams over higher up the pitch. The net effect of this would be to leave space in my defence so if a long ball did get out of the opponents defence, there would be a good chance for my opponent to get a score. I can see this rule helping to make football a better spectacle. It may need tweaking but why not try it.

What would sicken a mans hole is to listen to all these people right out objecting to it, as if football is a great sport altogether and we should leave as is. That is real madness.

Agree 100% on all your points, and this is coming from someone who ten years ago would get enjoyment out of watching a random game of Gaelic football, over last five years, I truly have gotten so frustrated watching this bullshit hand passing spectacle where players are programmed not to kick the ball, that my personal viewing of gaelic games has dropped off measurably.

lets see how the proposed changes work, cannot believe the negativity before they are even tried.
one thing it hopefully will do is get rid of the "chancer" managers, who sole strategy if to keep possession at all costs, and get a few results to justify their expenses.

[DuffleKing]

Is it not apparent to everyone that none of these proposals - least of all the handpass restriction - are going to discourage packing defences? Quite the opposite.