In the May 2014 Nenagh Éire Óg newsletter, former club player and Tipperary All-Ireland winning full back Conor O’Donovan responded to a vox pop. One of the questions was, ‘What would you like to change about the game?’
“I would ban the handpass in its current form,” he replied, “because of the way some players ‘palm’ the ball, it resembles a throw.”
This weekend O’Donovan will be in Donegal town to present a motion from Éire Óg to the GAA’s annual congress. Motion 1 is intended to remove any ambiguity about handpassing, by stipulating that the hand holding the ball may not be used to play it on.
A player who wants to, can switch their hurl to free up the other hand to make the pass or they can play the ball off their stick and then handpass it away.
It represents the culmination of a 17-year crusade by O’Donovan to regulate handpassing and eliminate the scourge of ball throwing, which he sees as endemic to the modern game.
The point at which “a definite striking action of a hand” becomes a throw and therefore a technical foul has become so hard to determine, a leading referee conceded that half the time, the handpass can’t be seen properly, so players have to get the benefit of the doubt.
“I actually raised this issue with Croke Park back in 2008, would you believe?” says O’Donovan. “Way, way back. I had a bit of email communication with an official in Croke Park at that time, highlighting it as a problem.”
As the change requires the amendment of playing rules, bringing it forward was restricted to every five years. Originally, he believed he could get a proposal for change up and running by 2010 but time passed and the matter simply disappeared from view.
“Then over the next 10 years, I could see the problem just getting worse and worse and I just thought to myself, look, nobody seems to be doing anything about this. Let’s see if I can just start some sort of an awareness, if you like, about the issue.
“We’ve arrived now at this point where, thankfully, there’s a motion going to Congress to be voted on, which, if passed, will just eliminate the ball throwing from the game.”
Is that what the game wants? Whereas most reasonable observers would accept the validity of the Nenagh case, there is still the fact that every year the hurling championship produces gripping matches and extraordinary spectacle. Do most take the view that hurling isn’t broken and therefore doesn’t require fixing?
Westmeath’s Barry Kelly, a four-time All-Ireland referee, was asked two years ago to form a work group by Prof David Hassan, chair of the GAA’s Standing Committee on the Playing Rules (SCPR), specifically to consider the handpass.
At the time, Hassan spoke to this newspaper about why the committee had decided to look at the handpass despite conflicting views. He said there are two sides to the debate but that handpassing encourages the possession game and removing the element of contest from the game.
“There is a group strongly of the view that we need to change the rule and, equally, a group who are perfectly content to let referees make the call under the current rule. Inevitably there is a distribution of views. You’re also seeing a general de-risking of the game.”
In the five years until 2023 there was a 40 per cent increase in the number of handpasses in intercounty hurling, up to 99 per game.
According to Kelly, that hasn’t been long moving into three digits. “I think the average now is well over 100 per game.”
He is supportive of the O’Donovan proposal but conscious that with the football rules trial ongoing, the hurling league, and with it the handpass, aren’t getting rapt attention
“Since last summer, when there was the few, usual dodgy handpasses, it’s been forgotten about in the haze of fantastic hurling finals and semi-finals and so on.
“It’s almost like, you know, I have a troublesome teenager but he gets 600 points in the Leaving Cert, so we forget about the fact that he can be ... well, troublesome. You know, it’s kind of like, oh well, he’s a good kid overall.”
After looking at the situation, Kelly’s work group trialled the Nenagh proposals as well as a stipulation that puck-outs travel to at least the 45m line, in a higher education freshers competition. The results were transformative.
In the 2023 All-Ireland senior hurling championship, for every handpass there were 1.5 stick passes. In the following year’s third-level trials, however, for every handpass, there were eight stick passes.
“I was at two games and then I watched the final online,” says O’Donovan. “You could see how easily the players adapted to it.”
As well as those who are prepared to overlook the incidence of foul handpassing for the sake of a fast-moving game, there are others who believe that the modern game should accommodate the tactic without asking too many questions.
Last summer, Cork had a goal by Brian Hayes disallowed because of the scoring assist by Alan Connolly was deemed to have been a throw. Forensic, slow-motion analysis on The Sunday Game suggested that the call had been wrong.
O’Donovan argues that whereas the pundits go to town on examples of wrongly penalised throws, they are often happy to overlook mistakes that go the other way, which he attributes to a natural bias among those involved in the game or recently retired, from whom the ranks of punditry are largely drawn.
“I think if you’re looking at it from the perspective of a current player or a coach or a manager,” says O’Donovan, “you’ll say everything is fine but if you’re looking at it from the perspective of a spectator or a supporter, which is the category I would be in now, it’s not fine.
“In a way, referees are having to engage in guesswork. Was the ball thrown or was it handpassed legally? And if referees are engaging in guesswork, that’s clearly undermining the integrity of the rules of hurling.”
Main motions for congress
Motion 1: Conor O’Donovan’s proposal to prohibit the use of the hand holding the ball to handpass or palm it away. (Nenagh Éire Óg, Tipperary)
Motion 3: A proposal to add provincial finals to All-Ireland finals as exempt from winner on the day protocols. As a reaction to last year’s hurling All-Ireland going to extra time, it also stipulates that All-Ireland finals go straight to a replay if level after normal time. (Central Council/CCCC)
Motion 7: This proposes to abandon the five-year rule for tabling motions on playing rules and allow them in any given year. (Cloonacool, Sligo)
Motion 10: To further dismantle the old prohibitions on other sports by allowing clubs to make their facilities available to other sports and community-based groups. (Danesfort, Kilkenny)
Motion 12: Noel McCaffrey’s redefinition of eligibility for intercounty championship which requires a player to have played a minimum of four league games with their club in that calendar year. (Clontarf, Dublin)
Motion 13: From Wexford’s All-Ireland winning manager Liam Griffin, this would oblige every club to field at least one hurling team at under-7, under-8, under-9 and/or under-10. (St Mary’s Rosslare, Wexford)
Motion 14: That Europe be permitted to compete in the Lory Meagher Cup in 2026. (Maastricht GAA, Europe)
Motion 17: To govern the calling of special congresses and restore the power of Central Council to determine the number of delegates entitled to attend. This is to reverse a recent decision that stipulated there should be full delegations at a special congress. (Connacht, Leinster and Munster provincial councils)
Motion 19: Proposal to discontinue the All-Ireland group stages and introduce in 2026 a series of knock-out and qualifier rounds after the provincial championships as the format for All-Ireland SFC and Tailteann Cup. (Central Council/CCCC)
Motion 21: Grant permission for the council or committee in charge to consider additional suspensions or penalties in excess of the minimum permitted under rule should the gravity of the case deem it appropriate. (Central Council/CCCC/CHC/CAC)
Motion 38: That the GAA should maintain a neutral stance in any non-GAA campaign/movement subject to a new ‘Advocacy Policy,’ which shall be adopted by Central Council. (Central Council)
Motion 39: To bring Official Guide policy on playing gear and equipment in line with EU law by removing the wording ‘Shall be of Irish manufacture. Instead, the regulation would state: ‘shall be manufactured by a GAA licensed kit manufacturer.’ Also applicable to replica playing gear.” (Central Council)
