These New Rules are a joke

[el_cuervo_fc]

From Todays Irish News

http://www.irishnews.com/irishnews/597/5776/2009/1/29/608837_370682491570Tacklerul.html

Tackle rules revised
Gaelic Games
By Andy Watters and Coilin Duffy
29/01/2009

FOOTAGE of Crossmaglen's Ulster club football final double-header against Ballinderry came under the spotlight as the GAA revealed seven new infractions for the forthcoming National Football League yesterday.

Additional no-nos include the frontal push and touching or shoving an opponent in the face.

They bring to 15 the number of new laws introduced since the start of the Dr McKenna Cup and were announced by Liam O'Neill, chairman of the Disciplinary Task Force, and Pat Daly, GAA Director of Games.

Both the drawn and replayed Ulster club finals were used as examples of where cynical fouls were committed, with Daly stating: "those games were riddled with examples of fouls".

Clips from a number of other games were shown and O'Neill claimed that Ulster players had already benefitted from the new rules which were introduced for the McKenna Cup.

"The message we are trying to get out is that it doesn't pay to foul. I'm quite sure the Ulster managers have got that message across to their players and the I'm sure that the players have embraced it," he said.

"I'm sure that you will find, at the end of the League, Ulster teams will prepare for this as they did before in 2005 (last rules experiment) and do quite well out of it."

A total of 60 examples were used during the hour-long presentation with the O'Byrne Cup tie between Louth and Wicklow at Drogheda

singled out for a passage of play which lasted four minutes and three seconds without a foul.

"A long sequence of play is what we should be getting all of the time," said O'Neill.

"What was significant about that was not that it lasted four minutes, but that the ball was played up and down the field – there were numerous handpasses, numerous kick passes and numerous

dispossessions, but we would expect before the end of the year that some of those bouts of forward play will have resulted in scores."

And O'Neill, who watched the McKenna Cup clash between Cavan and Queen's, is satisfied that players have shown they are happy with the new rules.

"Players have already shown that they are willing to embrace the new rules and actually prefer to play Gaelic games in an environment where it doesn't pay to foul," he claimed.

Meetings for football and hurling referees will take place ahead of the NFL and NHL starts, with the football whistlers set to convene in Athlone tomorrow night.

All inter-county managers will also be invited to a meeting to give their views in the coming weeks and O'Neill believes players, management and officials alike are all willing to take on the responsibilities in relation to the new rules.

"We said that this was a serious enough change in mindset that we had to include all of the stake-holders. We have included them in every decision, and in every part of our decision-making process," he said.

"We are trying to treat everybody with respect here. We want to treat county managers with respect because they have to prepare teams for the competitions. We want to treat the players with respect because we want them to know the rules, that's why we sent the DVD out to their managers to show them.

"We want to treat referees with respect because we are asking them to put themselves on the line. Every single time a referee goes out he is putting himself on the line and we are treating them with the new rules as intensively as we can to be fair to them so they can make their decisions and get them right as soon as possible."

[saffron sam2]

So they add seven new infractions based on the Ballinderry Cross game, yet Francie Bellew's head butt goes unpunished.

[The GAA]

The rules are getting more farcical by the day.


Armagh are fuming after Aidan O'Rourke picked up a controversial one-month suspension which rules him out of their NFL opener against Wexford on Sunday.

O'Rourke received the suspension as his 'reward' for taking time out to coach Queen's University in the McKenna Cup. The Orchard County star got four weeks for remonstrating with a linesman during the win over - ironically - Armagh.



He spent the rest of the McKenna Cup campaign in the stands but is now also ruled out of his county's opening league assignment, much to the wrath of everybody concerned:

"I wasn't too up on the rules in this to tell the truth, but it seems a bit odd. It certainly doesn't encourage fellas to get involved in coaching if this is going to be the case.

"It's an aspect I hadn't really thought of. It has ramifications for coaching the team but the big thing for me was not being able to play for Armagh.

"In Sigerson, you just stand on one side of the rope so it is irrelevant really. But Armagh are not too happy about me missing the game in Wexford."

Can't see how O'Rourke has any agument.

From Todays Irish News

http://www.irishnews.com/irishnews/597/5776/2009/1/29/608837_370682491570Tacklerul.html

Tackle rules revised
Gaelic Games
By Andy Watters and Coilin Duffy
29/01/2009

FOOTAGE of Crossmaglen's Ulster club football final double-header against Ballinderry came under the spotlight as the GAA revealed seven new infractions for the forthcoming National Football League yesterday.

Additional no-nos include the frontal push and touching or shoving an opponent in the face.

They bring to 15 the number of new laws introduced since the start of the Dr McKenna Cup and were announced by Liam O'Neill, chairman of the Disciplinary Task Force, and Pat Daly, GAA Director of Games.

Both the drawn and replayed Ulster club finals were used as examples of where cynical fouls were committed, with Daly stating: "those games were riddled with examples of fouls".

Clips from a number of other games were shown and O'Neill claimed that Ulster players had already benefitted from the new rules which were introduced for the McKenna Cup.

"The message we are trying to get out is that it doesn't pay to foul. I'm quite sure the Ulster managers have got that message across to their players and the I'm sure that the players have embraced it," he said.

"I'm sure that you will find, at the end of the League, Ulster teams will prepare for this as they did before in 2005 (last rules experiment) and do quite well out of it."

A total of 60 examples were used during the hour-long presentation with the O'Byrne Cup tie between Louth and Wicklow at Drogheda

singled out for a passage of play which lasted four minutes and three seconds without a foul.

"A long sequence of play is what we should be getting all of the time," said O'Neill.

"What was significant about that was not that it lasted four minutes, but that the ball was played up and down the field – there were numerous handpasses, numerous kick passes and numerous

dispossessions, but we would expect before the end of the year that some of those bouts of forward play will have resulted in scores."

And O'Neill, who watched the McKenna Cup clash between Cavan and Queen's, is satisfied that players have shown they are happy with the new rules.

"Players have already shown that they are willing to embrace the new rules and actually prefer to play Gaelic games in an environment where it doesn't pay to foul," he claimed.

Meetings for football and hurling referees will take place ahead of the NFL and NHL starts, with the football whistlers set to convene in Athlone tomorrow night.

All inter-county managers will also be invited to a meeting to give their views in the coming weeks and O'Neill believes players, management and officials alike are all willing to take on the responsibilities in relation to the new rules.

"We said that this was a serious enough change in mindset that we had to include all of the stake-holders. We have included them in every decision, and in every part of our decision-making process," he said.

"We are trying to treat everybody with respect here. We want to treat county managers with respect because they have to prepare teams for the competitions. We want to treat the players with respect because we want them to know the rules, that's why we sent the DVD out to their managers to show them.

"We want to treat referees with respect because we are asking them to put themselves on the line. Every single time a referee goes out he is putting himself on the line and we are treating them with the new rules as intensively as we can to be fair to them so they can make their decisions and get them right as soon as possible."

So thats seven more rule changes for the league on top of those included in the january competitions? this isbecoming a bigger joke than i thought.

Did these stakeholders include players? i doubt it somehow?

[mylestheslasher]

Let me start by saying Cavan were not beaten by Longford yesterday due to the new rules.

Now parking that, these rules are panning out exactly as I suspected. It is effectively now impossible to be reduced to 14 players or to get a straight yellow card. It is also impossible to predict what is going to be a black card and what is not. Here is what happened in Longford yesterday where the ref was Michael Duffy from Sligo.

30 seconds into the game Cavan have the ball in midfield. They are about to kick it into the FF line. Our FF tries to make a run and is having his jersey pulled. Michael correctly gives Cavan a free in front of the posts but does not give a ticking to  the back. Was this not the type of foul this rule change was supposed to punish. On three occassions in the 1st half Longford back "close lined" Cavan forwards. These were bad fouls that were 100% yellow cards last year. One was so bad that everyone in the crowd could hear the smack of arm to face. All three resulted in black cards. Michael then started black carding every foul, even one that were slightly mis timed honest attempts to tackle. Every black card meant the game had to be held up for 20 seconds to fill in the notebook. As a result the game deteriorated into an hour of stop start. Were these new rules not supposed  to  be designed to prevent this type of match.

I read somewhere how the GAA showed a vdeoed club game as an example of why  the rules need to change. I advise them to look at a video of yesterdays Cavan v Longford game to get the other side of it. The rules need to be binned until every ref is properly trained on how to enforce them. It is a joke to have totally different interpretations of the rules when the net result is sending of players (or not as the case may be). In any case a Sin Bin is a much better idea than this.

[AN other]

It is effectively now impossible to be reduced to 14 players or to get a straight yellow card.

Not true, see Barry Cullinane or Colm Cavanagh.
It seems to me that a black card is the new yellow and you'll only get a yellow for really persistant fouling or for something that would have been borderline yellow/red under the old rules. I'm giving these new rules a cautious welcome based on the handful of games I've seen so far and I don't see any reduction in physicality.
I don't agree with the suspension thing though. Maybe if it was 4 or 5 yellow cards over a 5 or 6 games which brought a suspension, But generally, being ordered off for a yellow is punishment enough in my book.

[saffron sam2]

The most controversial of the new rules it the one that states you can't be given a yellow card if you are Sean Cavanagh.