Rule-change brigade need to look at bigger picture
Eugene McGee:
Rule-change brigade need to look at bigger picture
Monday December 07 2009
I hate to bring this up dear readers, especially with the season of goodwill imminent, but the grim news for GAA people is that coming down the tracks we have yet another pair of rules revision committees from the depths of Croke Park.
Their deliberations will be announced this week and whatever wonderful ideas they present will be debated at GAA Congress in April 2010.
Playing rules can only be changed in years divisible by five, for some mysterious reason.
It looks like being a long, hard winter, so I suppose we should be grateful to have something of a GAA nature to argue about and there is nothing like proposed rule changes to spark a bit of controversy.
No Irish sport causes as much controversy when it comes to looking at rule changes as the GAA.
There was a bit of a furore in rugby in recent years about changes, but that was exceptional.
In the GAA, every Padraig, Michael and Eileen thinks that he or she knows as much about the rules as top-class players, referees or team managers.
Maybe that is because the playing rules of Gaelic football are so badly written and are so open to interpretation that everybody believes they know what exactly the playing rules are meant to achieve.
After 125 years, one would think that the rules of Gaelic football would be well known, understood and consistently applied in every corner of Ireland and abroad and at every level from Junior C grade to All-Ireland championship level.
democratic Surely after 125 years we should not still be sorting out 'kinks' in the rules as a prominent GAA figure laughingly, but seriously, described it recently.
In an attempt to prevent all sorts of weird rule changes being proposed next year, the GAA set up two committees to come up with possible changes at 2010 Congress.
But since the GAA is the most democratic organisation known to man, this will not prevent any of the 3000-plus GAA clubs proposing rule changes also.
What everybody interested in framing motions about changes need to ask themselves straight away is this: Why are we proposing this particular change?
In the past 25 years some strange reasons have been offered -- such as the demands of live television, the increased levels of fitness, the more cynical nature of sport today, this ludicrous concept called 'speeding up the game', making football more attractive to young people, keeping the play moving (which is a first cousin of the speeding up the ball idea) and modern changes to coaching, sports psychology and such matters.
In modern times the GAA has endeavoured to research the pros and cons of possible playing rule changes, but more often than not they fall by the wayside in favour of tradition. So it is ironic therefore that so few changes of rules have been proposed aimed at preserving and strengthening the few core skills of football which are high catching, accurate foot-passing and kicking and scoring from play up to 50 yards out.
Every football code in the world has insisted on preserving their own core values, even when adjusting playing rules.
Yet the GAA has allowed high catching to become a dying art with young players being coached to counteract high catching by deliberately breaking the ball away from the fielder.
This is a so-called skill that is at best a negative tactic and at worst destructive.
The art of kicking the ball accurately in both short and long distances was the principal means of moving the ball from one end of the field to the other up to about 30 years ago.
It was quite common for a wing half-back to kick the ball diagonally to a corner-forward with a 50-yard delivery.
This has disappeared with the distance covered by the long kick replaced today by a series of short hand-passes, often illegal, all in the name of retaining possession.
This requires little skill or courage but depends on high fitness levels. Some people like that sort of play, but many more are sick and tired of it.
The most common expression from spectators at Gaelic football game is: 'Will you kick the effing ball into the forwards and stop that auld messing'.
Yet hardly any team manager at county level that I am aware of is prepared to change to a more kicking approach as their basic style.
There have been half-hearted attempts at rule changes aimed at encouraging more kicking -- such as limiting the number of hand-passes in a piece of play -- but nothing has come of that nor will it in 2010 because the real power-brokers in football today, the county managers, would be petrified if their beloved short-passing game were to be weakened.
Similarly, a proposed use of the mark in 2010 will be rejected again because managers will want to thwart the high fielder by breaking the ball.
When the proposed disciplinary rules were launched last winter, once again it was the team managers who connived to have some good proposals rejected even though many of them are mere hired hands of the GAA.
I have no doubt the committees announcing the latest proposals mean well, but these ideas always tend to just tinker around with football.
An overall analysis of the game is what is needed to prevent the constant erosion of Gaelic football's ethos and a few Mickey-Mouse proposals will not achieve that. Undoubtedly football must move with the times in several aspects of the playing rules to accommodate the needs of modern preparation and attitudes among young players in particular.
The game should never be seen to be standing still, but the fundamental skills of this, or any game, must be encouraged at all times rather than debased as is the case at present.
- Eugene McGee Irish Independent
Rule-change brigade need to look at bigger picture
Monday December 07 2009
I hate to bring this up dear readers, especially with the season of goodwill imminent, but the grim news for GAA people is that coming down the tracks we have yet another pair of rules revision committees from the depths of Croke Park.
Their deliberations will be announced this week and whatever wonderful ideas they present will be debated at GAA Congress in April 2010.
Playing rules can only be changed in years divisible by five, for some mysterious reason.
It looks like being a long, hard winter, so I suppose we should be grateful to have something of a GAA nature to argue about and there is nothing like proposed rule changes to spark a bit of controversy.
No Irish sport causes as much controversy when it comes to looking at rule changes as the GAA.
There was a bit of a furore in rugby in recent years about changes, but that was exceptional.
In the GAA, every Padraig, Michael and Eileen thinks that he or she knows as much about the rules as top-class players, referees or team managers.
Maybe that is because the playing rules of Gaelic football are so badly written and are so open to interpretation that everybody believes they know what exactly the playing rules are meant to achieve.
After 125 years, one would think that the rules of Gaelic football would be well known, understood and consistently applied in every corner of Ireland and abroad and at every level from Junior C grade to All-Ireland championship level.
democratic Surely after 125 years we should not still be sorting out 'kinks' in the rules as a prominent GAA figure laughingly, but seriously, described it recently.
In an attempt to prevent all sorts of weird rule changes being proposed next year, the GAA set up two committees to come up with possible changes at 2010 Congress.
But since the GAA is the most democratic organisation known to man, this will not prevent any of the 3000-plus GAA clubs proposing rule changes also.
What everybody interested in framing motions about changes need to ask themselves straight away is this: Why are we proposing this particular change?
In the past 25 years some strange reasons have been offered -- such as the demands of live television, the increased levels of fitness, the more cynical nature of sport today, this ludicrous concept called 'speeding up the game', making football more attractive to young people, keeping the play moving (which is a first cousin of the speeding up the ball idea) and modern changes to coaching, sports psychology and such matters.
In modern times the GAA has endeavoured to research the pros and cons of possible playing rule changes, but more often than not they fall by the wayside in favour of tradition. So it is ironic therefore that so few changes of rules have been proposed aimed at preserving and strengthening the few core skills of football which are high catching, accurate foot-passing and kicking and scoring from play up to 50 yards out.
Every football code in the world has insisted on preserving their own core values, even when adjusting playing rules.
Yet the GAA has allowed high catching to become a dying art with young players being coached to counteract high catching by deliberately breaking the ball away from the fielder.
This is a so-called skill that is at best a negative tactic and at worst destructive.
The art of kicking the ball accurately in both short and long distances was the principal means of moving the ball from one end of the field to the other up to about 30 years ago.
It was quite common for a wing half-back to kick the ball diagonally to a corner-forward with a 50-yard delivery.
This has disappeared with the distance covered by the long kick replaced today by a series of short hand-passes, often illegal, all in the name of retaining possession.
This requires little skill or courage but depends on high fitness levels. Some people like that sort of play, but many more are sick and tired of it.
The most common expression from spectators at Gaelic football game is: 'Will you kick the effing ball into the forwards and stop that auld messing'.
Yet hardly any team manager at county level that I am aware of is prepared to change to a more kicking approach as their basic style.
There have been half-hearted attempts at rule changes aimed at encouraging more kicking -- such as limiting the number of hand-passes in a piece of play -- but nothing has come of that nor will it in 2010 because the real power-brokers in football today, the county managers, would be petrified if their beloved short-passing game were to be weakened.
Similarly, a proposed use of the mark in 2010 will be rejected again because managers will want to thwart the high fielder by breaking the ball.
When the proposed disciplinary rules were launched last winter, once again it was the team managers who connived to have some good proposals rejected even though many of them are mere hired hands of the GAA.
I have no doubt the committees announcing the latest proposals mean well, but these ideas always tend to just tinker around with football.
An overall analysis of the game is what is needed to prevent the constant erosion of Gaelic football's ethos and a few Mickey-Mouse proposals will not achieve that. Undoubtedly football must move with the times in several aspects of the playing rules to accommodate the needs of modern preparation and attitudes among young players in particular.
The game should never be seen to be standing still, but the fundamental skills of this, or any game, must be encouraged at all times rather than debased as is the case at present.
- Eugene McGee Irish Independent
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