So. How are we all feeling? Did we all get through the first weekend of the new football rules safe and sound? Don’t be shy – these are times of change and it’s okay not to be sure.
In fact, if there was one lesson worth learning from the opening weekend, it’s that we should probably take with a boatload of salt the opinion of anyone talking about the new rules with absolute certainty.
You can like some rules and dislike others. You can think they’re going to save football or you can be more inclined to throw your hands in the air and wonder why they were needed at all. The one thing you can’t do is point to the games of the last weekend of January and declare your judgment vindicated. Anyone doing so is probably not coming to the conversation with the most open of minds.
Jim Gavin is very fond, in all conversations about the rules, to cite the FRC’s remit. To make Gaelic football the most enjoyable amateur sport in the world to play and watch. That’s the thing to keep in mind, always. For the rules to work, they have to add to the enjoyment. That’s a subjective thing, obviously, and difficult to measure. So there’s going to be an element of knowing it when you see it.
Of all the new rules, the solo-and-go seems to have settled into the lingua franca of the game the quickest. That’s most likely because it immediately appeals as something players and supporters instinctively enjoy – catching the opposition off guard and putting them on the back foot while making yards up the pitch. It adds urgency, quick thinking and cuteness to the gameplay. People like that.
The one v one throw-in seems a little pointless but it’s such a small thing that nobody really feels the need to take to the barricades to either defend or attack it. The open-ended advantage rule is something people already instinctively get and probably should have been brought in a long time ago.
You can posit that neither rule change exactly screams enjoyment. But crucially, neither rule can conceivably subtract it. If you’re angry that two spare midfielders can’t wrestle each other at the throw-in any more, it’s possible there you might have deeper issues going on.
The two-point arc might not be quite as popular across the board but it was interesting to see how much it was used across the weekend. Taking match reports as a guide, two-point kicks made up 18.6 per cent of the total scores on Saturday and Sunday. In all, there were 47 two-pointers scored across the divisions, with 19 of them coming from frees.
Roscommon v Down (10) and Cavan v Monaghan (9) were the games where the heaviest amount of two-point scoring took place. As the weather and pitches improve, those numbers will likely go up. People like scoring. The two-point arc will probably be a success.
No, the rules that are in danger of ultimately not working out are the ones that for one reason or another, actually do the opposite of the FRC’s remit. It’s not going to be good enough to dismiss anyone giving out about the rules as stuck-in-the-muds or plain old awkward bollockses. The key judgment will have to be whether such and such a rule adds or subtracts enjoyment.
Ultimately, that’s why the rules with lots of moving parts or rules that need too much explaining could be in danger. People don’t enjoy feeling stupid. They really don’t enjoy being told they’re stupid.
Shane Walsh’s two-point free for Galway on Saturday night after Armagh breached the 3v3 rules is a perfect case in point. To recap – in the second half in Salthill, referee Conor Lane was informed by his line umpire that Armagh didn’t have three players inside the Galway half. Lane called for the ball and brought it forward for a tap-over free on the 20-metre line. Whereupon Walsh brought it back out to the top of the 40-metre arc, easily splitting the posts for a two-point score.
People get the idea behind keeping three players in the opposition half. But the main argument against it throughout the past few months is that it would be hard to police. There was very little mention of the fact that the punishment for it was likely to be a two-point free dead straight in front of the posts.
In the FRC’s interim report, the section on the 3v3 cites only a 20m free as the punishment for a breach of the rule. In other sections – notably the one dealing with dissent – it is made clear that there is scope for bringing the ball back outside the 40m arc to turn your one-point free into a two-point free. But nowhere in the initial selling of the rules was it suggested that the 3v3 would be subject to a possible two-point penalty.
This might all sound a bit too deep in the weeds for the first weekend but it goes to a core point. For the rules to work, they have to make sense. Straight off the bat, it doesn’t feel like it makes sense that Armagh’s breach of the 3v3 should result in one of the best players in the country being presented with a two-point free in front of the posts with the wind at his back. Absolutely nobody stood up at Special Congress to explain that this would be the case – if they had, it’s hard to argue the motion would have sailed through like it did.
There are miles to go here and the FRC’s work is nowhere near done.
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