Galway full back Finian Hanley looking forward to Rules kickout changes

International Rules has always produced quiet talents, players without enormously elevated intercounty profiles who thrive in the international arena.

Galway full back Finian Hanley is an example: a former Ireland vice-captain, he is a veteran of four series and seven tests.

He says that experience is a factor in helping to perpetuate his international career.

“The mind adapts a bit quicker to the way the game is played. It does help, yeah.”

Hanley is looking forward to the test. He’s positive about the rule changes that have limited the short kickout, and would like to see them introduced into domestic football.

Ruined

“Gaelic football is being ruined a bit by short kickouts. It’s just taking a bit of emphasis off some of the skills of the game, I think. Now, it’s not an old fashioned thing. A sequence of playing Gaelic football can be: short kickout, handpass up the pitch and over the bar. You might as well be at a New York Knicks game sometimes the way it moves.

“It [the rule change] is good for the game and it’ll be good for this game as well because obviously they’ll have some big men and there’ll be big contests around the middle.

“Obviously the hand-passes have been increased which will probably help them a bit more. I think the rules are as perfect as they’re going to get them now and it’ll be quite competitive.

“I don’t envisage a game where you’re going to have Jack O’Shea catches or Darragh Ó Sé catches. You’ll have a few here and there, but if people are watching it and the kickouts will make lads leap like salmon, it’s not going to happen.

“Obviously you’re going to have some boys going up, leaping and catching and great marks in the middle and that’ll get the crowd going, but I think it’ll be just more of a contest around the middle where balls will be 50-50 whereas the short kickout and retaining possession will be gone out of it.”