Free-taking debate: Keith Duggan talks to some of the game's great free-takers about the merits of taking place-kicks from the ground and their views on the growing popularity of kicking from the hands

In little over a decade, the art of kicking frees from the ground has all but disappeared. The introduction of the option of deliverance from the hand has led to the devastatingly swift erosion of a practice that had been an established skill since the association's formation in 1884.

While the basic premise behind the introduction of the hand-held free was sound in that the modern game flows much more freely than the wretched stop-start pattern that threatened to make a poison of Gaelic football, an unfortunate consequence has been the demise of a deliberate and deadly skill.

"I don't know, I don't know," moans Mikey Sheehy when asked about the widespread abandonment of the old-style free. "I work with young players here in Tralee and whatever it is, they are just impossible to convince that kicking the ball from the ground is the best way. And yet the evidence is there to be seen. In the Munster final last week, Dara Ó Cinnéide had a 100 per cent strike rate from the ground.

"The fellow I blame for all of this is Peter Canavan. Peter is so exceptionally good at kicking frees from his hand that young fellas see him and try to copy that with less success. Of course, Peter is equally comfortable kicking from the ground."

There would be little debate over how frees were taken at all were it not for the number of high-profile misses in recent championships. Glory or bust is the free-taker's lot.

Last year, Dublin's Ray Cosgrove hit the post in the last seconds of the All-Ireland semi-final against Armagh. He gave the best display of a summer of All Star quality in that match, a fact that was erased by the potency of that single stray kick. Westmeath's Dessie Dolan suffered similarly by missing a much more straightforward free in the dying seconds against Meath this summer. It is no over-statement to say Westmeath's momentum went into a tailspin after that kick.

"Players imagine that they (frees) are easier kicked out of the hands," says former Meath player Brian Stafford, one of the true perfectionists of the place-kick. "But the truth is that it is not. Now, I would be from the old school in that I believe in kicking off the ground. You just get a truer direction on the ball that way."

Stafford discovered he had a talent for floating frees early on and developed that ability to the point where there seemed to be a scientific dimension to his frees. His cool and scholarly executions were a perfect contrast to the tough, energetic and unorthodox character of the celebrated Meath team of the late 1980s. Mick Lyons's Meath always found a way: Stafford's frees were The Way: "Anything from 35 yards had to go over, right or left. That was your feeling."

While Stafford honed his skill over solitary lunch and evening sessions - six footballs and his shadow for company - Mikey Sheehy had a more beatnik approach.

"I'd practise a bit but not that much. They were something I always enjoyed and didn't really worry about that much. Like, the great thing about taking frees was that when you got a handy one early on, it would settle you."

Sheehy, of course, has the patent on perhaps the most famous free in the history of Gaelic football, his chip over Dublin goalkeeper Paddy Cullen in the 1978 All-Ireland final. "I wish to God it never went in," he laughs. "If I had a penny for every time I am asked about it, I'd be off in the Bahamas."

It was the improvisation and the leisurely way with which he seemed to lob his free over the retreating Cullen that gave it such popular appeal. Con Houlihan immortalised the moment in print: "And while all this was going on, Mike Sheehy was running up to take the kick - and suddenly Paddy dashed back to his goal like a woman who smells a cake burning. The ball won the race and curled inside the near post as Paddy crashed into the outside of the net and lay against it like a fireman who had returned home to find his station ablaze."

Sheehy is adamant Cullen was wrongly whistled for lifting the ball off the ground and regards the entire episode as just a freakish moment of good luck for Kerry. Free-takers accept those bouquets from the gods in the knowledge that sooner or later they will have to accept the visit of bad luck. All you can do is try to stave off that day.

"When you take a free from the ground, it is like a golf shot in a way," says the former Armagh dead-ball specialist Ger Houlahan. "The follow through, the repetition, the way the ball punches through the air. You are less susceptible to wind factors and you are effectively doing the same thing every time. The accuracy is much more exact and determinable.

"The free from the hands is a looser thing. But I think young players are fond of it because the run-in allows them to get greater distance on kicks when they are still developing physically.

"There is no doubt that the best free-takers in the game - Oisín McConville, Maurice Fitzgerald, Trevor Giles - kick the ball from the ground."

There is a theory that the rigours of modern training simply do not allow place-kickers the time to practise. But it seems strange that management teams would be so cavalier about an aspect of the game that statistics show to be the key difference between winning and losing.

It is something that certainly mystifies Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh, who has observed the demise of the brilliant target men.

"Tony McTague of Offaly was one who always stood out, it was as if he could kick them from anywhere."

With such an emphasis on fitness and preparation, with no pebble left unturned, the apparently blase manner with which frees are literally kicked away bemuses the RTÉ man as much as it does all other academics of the game. It is like looking a gift horse in the mouth. In the old days, they may not have dieted or worried about sharpness over 20 yards. But there was no way they were going to pass up on an uncontested shot at goal.

There is a famous story about Ross Carr, the Down free-taker from the 1990s. In a championship match against Derry, a foul was committed well over 50 yards from the goal. Strolling up to a pair of Derry men, Carr said, "Here, throw down that ball lads 'til I stick it over the bar."

And then he did.

Frees are one thing. In Gaelic football, there is no such thing as the goalkeeper's fear of the penalty. It is the striker who must weather the frights. Not for the first time, Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh put it best.

"When the whistle blows for a penalty, a goal immediately registers in your mind as if it is already on the scoreboard. But so often, it never appears."

There is a graveyard in Gaelic football reserved for those who have missed penalties. They register in the consciousness much more so than those penalties that are successfully converted. This year's championship has already thrown up a feast of missed spot-kicks. Last Sunday, two were missed in the Munster championship in Killarney and a week previously, Mayo blew a penalty in the Connacht final.

"It's a really hard kick," reckons Ger Houlahan. "You take Oisín (McConville) in the All-Ireland final last year. I have seen him practise left, right, low high, any way you want, bang, bang, bang. I thought the penalty he took against Kerry wasn't all that bad but the point is practice is one thing. It's when you are standing there. You see the likes of (Roberto) Baggio blow them in soccer. And the soccer penalty is much easier than the Gaelic equivalent."

For the kicker, it is a horrible scenario. Fourteen yards out can seem like an unconquerable distance in the midst of a baying stadium, players jostling and a goalkeeper that develops a sudden urge to kick the posts and sip water and brush the ground. Plus, when the kick is taken the goalkeeper often advances many feet off his line.

"I have asked many referees what they look at when the penalty is being struck," saysÓ Muircheartaigh, "and they generally say it is at the semi-circle to see that no player encroaches. But the goalkeeper seems free to move out and greatly narrow the angle for the kicker.

"I am waiting for the day that a referee has the courage to order a retake because the goalkeeper has moved off his line. The penalty ought to be a fair contest between the taker and the goalkeeper and at the moment, it probably is not."

Jimmy Keaveney's spot-kick against Kerry in 1976 is Ó Muirhcheartaigh's interpretation of the perfect penalty. But he also pays tribute to John Cleary of Cork who successfully landed two against Dublin the 1989 All-Ireland semi-final. Paddy Doherty of Down had a beautiful style, he reckons.

But as Ger Houlahan testifies, it is often not about how they look.

"Dixie Robinson, a fella I played with, had a kick that was nothing to look at. Every time I saw him go to kick a penalty, I thought he'd miss. But he never did. Never."

Missed penalties can become overblown in their significance when the team goes on to lose the game and recent trends suggest that luck goes astray as quickly as the kick.

It is something the player has to live with.

Kerry were four points up in their quest for the five in a row when they were presented with a penalty in the All-Ireland final of 1982. His experience then convinced Mikey Sheehy that you should never decide on who kicks penalties until the moment arrives.

In his opinion, penalties are a confidence thing. Just give the ball to the guy whose tail is up. Problem was that on that famous day, no Kerry man had worked up much of a dander.

"So you are the free-taker and suddenly the ball is just thrown to you. Now in fairness, I don't think I would have had many volunteers if I had looked to pass on the kick. I didn't hit it brilliantly but you know, it might have gone in. Martin Furlong did well to get down on it.

"To be honest, I wasn't playing particularly well that day and my confidence was not so high. So I see the penalty as an arbitrary thing and I would be an advocate of giving the responsibility to someone that feels like it at that moment.

"That would have put us seven points up. Sure I have nightmares about it still."

Brian Stafford believes that you are as well off placing penalties. Others reckon you should just close your eyes and try to bust the rigging. The perfect solution, a la Canavan, would be the marriage of both power and precision. His strike against Down last week had the appearance of that rarest of things, the unstoppable penalty.

"The penalty will never lose its appeal," says Ger Houlahan.

"Because it's a real part of the thrill of the game, you know, the OK Corral scenario where you have two people facing each other down. And while the game is all motion, for those five or 10 seconds, everything goes still.

"And if you score, it's like the earth has moved. And if you don't, you just wish it would swallow you up. Almost every player has a bum free or a tricky penalty that bothers them years after the game has ended."

"I missed a few all right in my later years," says Stafford, "when I wasn't playing as well. But I don't remember anything too costly. My worst miss? Nah, you have me there."

The epitaph that all place-kickers dream of.