The great tightrope walk is over for this week.
Having reached the other side of the canyon, the Football Review Committee proposals must make their way back next weekend before getting a bit of a rest. Even that is affected by the likely insertion of the postponed Kerry-Donegal match into the schedules of the upcoming intended ‘hurling only’ programme.
There has been such a focus on the efforts to redesign football over the past few months that it’s easy to forget the matches a few days ago were the first to be tested in conventional intercounty competition.
That is worth bearing in mind, as the environment will become more heated when promotion and relegation issues are on the line in the weeks ahead. By then you imagine, the generally benign attitudes from this week will have sharpened into something more recriminatory, as scapegoats are sought.
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There is also the parallel universe where all of the other rules need to be enforced and not forgotten about. As one official put it, breaches of the FRC proposals are all technical fouls but the business of addressing foul play infractions continues.
For instance, only a couple of weeks ago, Central Council at its January meeting issued updates on head-high tackles. Then there are the continuing difficulties surrounding the handpass in both hurling and football as well as overcarrying.
One obvious irony of the disciplinary proposals introduced is that maybe more attention to these issues under old rules may have rendered unnecessary the newly prescribed stringent penalties for various misbehaviours from cynical play to dissent expressed to match officials.
For years within the GAA, the lament used to be aired that contests needed to be more like rugby – in terms of absolute respect for referees’ decisions – and less like closing-time rows.
Yet there was an apparent reluctance on the part of referees to apply the rules already there to address such behaviour as if it reflected poorly on them to take umbrage at natural ‘banter’. The issue was actually that the rules rather than the individual referee’s sensitivity were being undermined by expressions of dissent and general backchat.
Previously, under Rule 6.4 of the Official Guide (Part II) when a player mouthed off at a referee for giving a free to the opposition, the award could be moved forward by 13 metres. Now the tariff is 50 metres with the option of bring the ball back outside of the 40m arc, thus doubling the value of a converted free.
Any verbal abuse from the sideline is punishable by a 13-metre free, which can also be pulled back for added impact.
Overall, the reception was positive. Many accepted that draconian punishment was needed to confront a long-running issue. Others did not, of course, and believed the penalty was too severe.
When analysed, those arguments tend to be self-defeating. If a penalty is held up as ‘too severe’ the chances are that any advanced alternative will be too lenient or at least something than can be tolerated.
Former intercounty referee Maurice Deegan has written persuasively on these pages about how the penalties have reconditioned the culture of the game’s behaviour towards referees. There is no gratuitous interaction – only captains are allowed raise queries – and it’s one problem fewer for match officials.
One official pointed out that Meath All-Ireland referee David Coldrick, having taken charge of a few practice matches under the new rules, was especially zealous in confronting backchat when officiating at the Cuala-Naas Leinster quarter-final in November even though the full panoply of deterrents was not available to him.
The attractions of the stringent rules were also evident in comments by the FRC’s Seamus Kenny at a seminar organised by the Sports Law Bar Association, that the rules on dissent were on the radar of the Hurling Development Committee.
Similar considerations apply to the controversy in Saturday’s Galway-Armagh match after which the latter’s manager Kieran McGeeney said that he had received conflicting advice on whether the penalty for deliberate breach of the 3v3 rule, a 20-metre free, could be brought back outside of the 40m arc.
Galway’s Shane Walsh did so in the second half and scored a two-pointer whereas Armagh hadn’t been aware of that option when they were awarded a similar free in the first half.
There’s little doubt that Walsh’s action was valid. An ‘explainer’ was posted on the GAA website last Thursday stating under the section on 3v3: “The team who have been awarded the free kick have the option to bring the ball out to the 40m arc to attempt a two-point score”.
Yet, although passed by Central Council, the option to move the ball hadn’t been expressly stated in the proposals for penalising a breach of the rule so McGeeney’s confusion was understandable.
It is easy to see why strict enforcement was considered advisable in that of the seven ‘core rule enhancements’ the 3v3 – the requirement to have at least three outfield players in each half – is probably the core of the core in that it promotes the creation of greater space in the middle of the field and ensures that teams always have three advanced players.
Were intentional breaches indulged or subject to watered-down penalties, the enforcement of that key provision would be undermined.
There have been teething problems of course and the speed of the whole process has made them inevitable. The rules approved by Central Council a couple of weeks ago were incorporated into the rule book but the draft contained errors and is being rewritten for the Official Guide, clearly not an ideal state of affairs as we head into week two.
Sure-footedness is important on any tightrope.
email: sean.moran@irishtimes.com
