REACTION TO NEW RULES: The Gaelic football season started at the weekend but remains in its infancy more so than before because of the new edict prohibiting intercounty panels gathering before January 1st, writes Gavin Cummiskey
This makes it more difficult to take an overview of the new yellow card/replacement punishment but two high-profile managers have already raised serious concerns in the wake of 81 dismissals in 24 matches last weekend.
The threat to football's physicality is a genuine worry for Mayo manager John O'Mahony after witnessing his severely under-strength team lose 2-10 to 1-8 against NUIG in Dangan on Sunday. "There were five sent off altogether in our game," said the Fine Gael TD for Mayo.
"As one of the managers who attended and co-ordinated the meetings on these issues I'm willing to give it time but talking to spectators after yesterday's game the overriding reaction was that the physicality has been taken out of the game. 'Pussyfoot football' was how one person put it; there really was no physicality at all.
"Yesterday wasn't a real test anyway as the players are just back together. These are glorified trials. I had players playing in 10 different venues around the country yesterday, including against us.
"It's one thing knowing what you'll get sent off for but out on the field the new rules still must become part of the players' thought process. I could almost see some players thinking as they went for the ball."
Meath's David Coldrick was the only referee over the weekend not to show a yellow card, in Kildare's defeat of Wexford in Newbridge. Entering his second season at the helm, Wexford manager Jason Ryan noted the immediate positive of increased discipline among his players but equally highlighted the tactical handicap that yellow cards will cause.
"If you get four yellow cards then you can only make two of your own substitutions," said Ryan. "It would certainly reduce the impact you can make from the sideline."
The members of the rules committee who have forced through this experiment, at least until after the National League, attended games all around the country and expressed reserved optimism of the first trial run. Former Leinster Council chairman Liam O'Neill was in Cavan on Saturday night to see Queen's University beat the hosts in the McKenna Cup before travelling home to Laois to see DCU win in Portarlington on Sunday.
O'Neill, as rules committee chairman, has been the loudest voice behind the experiment and was not perturbed by 81 players having their afternoons cut short for fouling. "The only way this will work is if they are applied to the letter of the law," said O'Neill.
"Regarding accidental collisions, it is very hard to accidentally pull someone to the ground or to accidentally grab an opponent's jersey."
It should be noted that most games over the weekend were dud affairs. Panels are refamiliarising while many players, or in Dublin's case the whole panel, are away or playing with third-level sides in preparation for the Sigerson Cup.
"Both referees I saw applied the rules as they are supposed to be," O'Neill continued. "There were three yellow cards in Cavan, I think, and another three in Portarlington but at least two of these were for double blacks.
"The fact of the matter was there were less frees, no charging after a player kicked or played the ball, very little intentional grabbing around the neck and no tripping or pulling to the ground.
"There was plenty of co-operation from the players and the managers but I understand there was a first-day-back-at-school feel to it all. In order for this to work good people will have to be caught out. I'm not worried about that. I'm aware that 81 yellow cards were shown in 24 games, that's a three-per-game average, but that statistic doesn't concern me."
It's going to take a high-profile encounter before the merits of this experiment can be fully gauged. Conveniently enough, Dublin host the All-Ireland champions Tyrone at Croke Park on January 31st. That will provide the arena, further enhanced by the GAA celebrating their 125th anniversary, to really see the true effects of this latest attempt to stamp out cynical play in Gaelic Games.
Until then, the focus switches to hurling and how it will cope with similar new sanctions.
