The lack of football in Gaelic Football.

[Hardy]

I agree fully about the fisted point. I've never understood why it wasn't outlawed when the handpassed goal was, since it requires even less skill. I suppose it had to do with the fact that it got to the stage where a huge majority of goals were handpassed into the net whereas it never got that bad with points.

Have a look at this to see what an awful abomination the handpassed goal was. How anybody ever thought it was reasonable is hard to understand. (Not picking on Kerry - they just happened to be the pre-eminent team in this misguided era.)

Same clip as the begining of the stream.

There are several signs of stupidity but I don't understand any of them.

[Leo]

I agree fully about the fisted point. I've never understood why it wasn't outlawed when the handpassed goal was, since it requires even less skill. I suppose it had to do with the fact that it got to the stage where a huge majority of goals were handpassed into the net whereas it never got that bad with points.

Have a look at this to see what an awful abomination the handpassed goal was. How anybody ever thought it was reasonable is hard to understand. (Not picking on Kerry - they just happened to be the pre-eminent team in this misguided era.)

I made an almost identical post over 3 years ago. We've really come on since then!

[brokencrossbar1]

I agree fully about the fisted point. I've never understood why it wasn't outlawed when the handpassed goal was, since it requires even less skill. I suppose it had to do with the fact that it got to the stage where a huge majority of goals were handpassed into the net whereas it never got that bad with points.

Have a look at this to see what an awful abomination the handpassed goal was. How anybody ever thought it was reasonable is hard to understand. (Not picking on Kerry - they just happened to be the pre-eminent team in this misguided era.)

It actually was outlawed for a time but was re-intriduced for some reason.  I disagree that it is not worthwhile.  In tight situations it is sometimes impossible to get the ball to your foot and if you are able to fist it over then I don't see why not.  It should however be a clear fist and not a semi throw.

[Zulu]

I agree fully about the fisted point. I've never understood why it wasn't outlawed when the handpassed goal was, since it requires even less skill. I suppose it had to do with the fact that it got to the stage where a huge majority of goals were handpassed into the net whereas it never got that bad with points.

Have a look at this to see what an awful abomination the handpassed goal was. How anybody ever thought it was reasonable is hard to understand. (Not picking on Kerry - they just happened to be the pre-eminent team in this misguided era.)

It actually was outlawed for a time but was re-intriduced for some reason.  I disagree that it is not worthwhile.  In tight situations it is sometimes impossible to get the ball to your foot and if you are able to fist it over then I don't see why not.  It should however be a clear fist and not a semi throw.

But this so rarely happens that it isn't worth retaining when most players use it rather than the kick in kicking situations. Even in situations when you are bottled up drawing a boot on it is rarely impossible.

[The Boy Wonder]

I think that fisted points should only be allowed from outside the large rectangle - this might eliminate the dubious "throws".

[Jinxy]

Gary Sice against Kildare in the 2nd half was a perfect example.
Great move from one end to the other.
He cuts through the Kildare defence at speed, bearing down on goal and he fists it over the bar from 20 yards out.
There was no good reason why he couldn't kick it over and it annoys me that he thought "Better safe than sorry" and went with the option that requires zero skill.
Such an anti-climax to a lovely move.
Just get rid of it altogether.

[Syferus]

The whole thread is a complete over-reaction.

In an age where players still have to tap the ball up slow enough from the ground for less than eagle-eyed referees to see or or feel their wrath and the rule book allows for half a team to encircle a player like he's been kidnapped and brought to a born-again prayer meeting as long as one one dares touch him with their unclean hands I think we can put fisted points on the back-burner.

Letting players pick the ball up straight from the ground will speed the game up no end and stop alot of the sledging and frees that go hand-in-hand with players bending down and trying to tap a ball up with a half a dozen hoves two inches from their digits. Make crowd defence a foul.

Then you've got a game.

[Hardy]

I agree fully about the fisted point. I've never understood why it wasn't outlawed when the handpassed goal was, since it requires even less skill. I suppose it had to do with the fact that it got to the stage where a huge majority of goals were handpassed into the net whereas it never got that bad with points.

Have a look at this to see what an awful abomination the handpassed goal was. How anybody ever thought it was reasonable is hard to understand. (Not picking on Kerry - they just happened to be the pre-eminent team in this misguided era.)

It actually was outlawed for a time but was re-intriduced for some reason.  I disagree that it is not worthwhile.  In tight situations it is sometimes impossible to get the ball to your foot and if you are able to fist it over then I don't see why not.  It should however be a clear fist and not a semi throw.

You should always use crowded situations when it's hard to get the ball to your foot as an opportunity to kick a shin or two - drop the ball, swing at it and miss. This discourages the occurrence of further crowded situations when you're involved.

[Hardy]

How could you make "crowd defence" a foul? Tell people where they can and can't stand, in a fast-moving situation and also depending on where other people are standing? How many referees, assisted by stop-motion cameras would you need to make that work? It's not chess, it's a full-tilt, fast moving contact sport. Or it used to be until the "ban defending" lobby started up.

There are enough wrong-headed anti-defending rules, practices and interpretations in place already
- forwards getting frees for fouling defenders
- defenders getting yellow cards when forwards seem immune to them, often to the extent that as a game progresses you have three or four defenders who dare not tackle a forward at all
- 14-metre penalty for dissent penalising defenders usually with a score but forwards not at all
- defenders penalised for standing their ground and not moving out of the way to let a forward run past
- etc.

The legislators back in the early eighties (I think) saw that the handpassed goal was taking football down the road of Harlem Globetrotters style junk entertainment and did something about it. The misguided attempts of the last decade to "clean up" the game and eliminate physical contact so that we can all watch fancy forwards scoring fancy scores without being bothered by pesky defenders are taking it in the same direction but nobody seems to care or even notice.

[Denn Forever]

Letting players pick the ball up straight from the ground will speed the game up no end and stop alot of the sledging and frees that go hand-in-hand with players bending down and trying to tap a ball up with a half a dozen hoves two inches from their digits. Make crowd defence a foul.

Then you've got a game.

No, please no.  Would lead to the scambling for possession on the ground that you sometimes see in the AFL.

In a game that is a poor relation to hurling terms of skill levels, lets not remove skill. 

Do people here think that the game needs speeding up?

[PAULD123]

I agree with everyone that the handpass goal is a bollix. I actually don't remember it but watching the video you can see that it is not much more than throwing the ball in the net. The keeper really has no chance.

However regarding the fisted point I disagree with most people. If an attacker runs into the square, then to get a penalty he really has to be held. If a defender slaps his hand across his legs then the referee will rarely give a penalty. But this action means the attacker really cannot kick the ball and so the defender wins without even making an attempt to tackle the ball. If you want to talk about skills then attacking skills should be balanced by defending skills and defending skills are based on tackling the ball not the man. You can not ask for more skills from an attacker without also asking to see correct rule applied defending to go with it.

The ability to fist over the bar allows an attacker to defeat the illegal block/slap across his legs by a defender. If a defender is doing the job according to the spirit of the game he would be tackling the ball and it wouldn't matter if the player tried to fist it over or kick it. Disallowing fisted points simply allows lazy defending to prevent attackers from scoring.

[EagleLord]

Definitely don't want to see the ball allowed to be picked off the ground. As Denn says, it would lead to madness on the deck, it would be like AFL or rugby, men piling on, crawling all over each other?? Not for me.. I don't really see anything wrong with men fisting over points, in certain occasions it just is the better option. Like when a forward is being crowded by defenders and he doesn't have room to get the ball to his foot, or when a forward is cutting in from the endline, tight angle, fisting over there is always the better option.

[Syferus]

No, please no.  Would lead to the scambling for possession on the ground that you sometimes see in the AFL.

Definitely don't want to see the ball allowed to be picked off the ground. As Denn says, it would lead to madness on the deck, it would be like AFL or rugby, men piling on, crawling all over each other?? Not for me..

In ladies football the ball can be picked up off the ground directly provided she is in a standing position, which means she must have at least one foot on the ground and no other part of her body touching the ground supporting her (e.g. knee, hand) when she lifts the ball. I think this was trialled in the NFL a few years ago.

Exactly. The idea that what we have already isn't 'madness on the deck' is, well, madness.

Anyone who thinks less delays like that won't help the game is living on a different planet to me - the more time a defence has to set themselves and drag most everyone back the more and more they resemble a team coached by Big Jim. Even taking out a single second delay in a pass makes a huge difference and would invariably lead to more chances and more scores.

[Rossfan]

Letting players pick the ball up straight from the ground will speed the game up no end and stop alot of the sledging and frees that go hand-in-hand with players bending down and trying to tap a ball up with a half a dozen hoves two inches from their digits. Make crowd defence a foul.

Then you've got a game.

No, please no.  Would lead to the scambling for possession on the ground that you sometimes see in the AFL.


Do people here think that the game needs speeding up?

Players are running round like headless chickens but the ball movement has slowed down something shocking with the 40 handpasses every 20 metres sh1te that we have nowadays.
A kicked ball travels faster than any athletic runny handpasser.
As for eliminating the pick up - sure why not let players carry the ball as far as they like , allow throws and sur elet lads carry the ball over the goal line for a goal too ... all in the interest of speeding the game up y'see 

[Denn Forever]

Ladies football has some aspects that are much better than the men's game e.g. Time keeping independent of the Ref, Sin Bin.

Anyone who thinks less delays like that won't help the game is living on a different planet to me

I know I've just highlighted one section of your post but I can't understand what delays you are talking about.

Can you still just hop the ball rather than solo in the ladies game?

It still looks wrong seeing the ball being picked up (Even iin the ladies game there can be a bunching up of a few players around the ball as they try to pick it up). There is no better sight than seeing a player pick up the ball in full flight (i.e following the ball) with a toe jab.