John Fogarty
And so this blog returns once more to a subject it has addressed a number of times before – game reform.
Sunday’s All-Ireland semi-final crystallised things for a lot of people. The laissez-faire refereeing, the distinct absence of the advantage rule, the woeful interpretation of the tackle... as written here before, it all has to end.
Football’s ills are more serious. The problem there is with how the game is being played. Hurling’s issue is with how it is refereed.
Yesterday, Dónal Óg Cusack brought more light onto the subject. His comments will, as he forecasted, be interpreted by some as anti-Kilkenny and lines will be drawn from the column back to the Stepford Wives comment about the Cats in his autobiography.
It should also make the next meeting of the playing rules committee, of which Cusack, as GPA chairman, and Brian Cody are members, an interesting one.
Yet just how valid is that group of people? Cody is on record as saying there is nothing much worth changing in hurling.
Prior to the league final this year, he said: “Apart from these unfortunate cruciate injuries or natural injuries that can happen, there is no dirt in the game at all.
"But in my head I believe that they are trying to take genuine physicality out of the game. And I wish they would stop doing that.”
As Michael Rice contemplates missing an All-Ireland final with a broken hand, it would be difficult to tell him that there is no dirt in hurling.
Not surprisingly, Cody remarked on Sunday’s game as “just good manly stuff” but then it’s a long-standing fact that the physical style of hurling is what suits Kilkenny best.
James “Cha” Fitzpatrick left the Kilkenny panel last year not because his hurling wasn’t up to scratch but because he realised the size of his body didn’t fit the management’s purpose in midfield.
Across the table from Cody in Croke Park, Cusack clearly wants something done about the direction the game is going yet, although the Cork goalkeeper is right, he has as much a vested interest as Cody.
In his column, Cusack condemned the dark arts practiced in games at the moment. However, he admitted in his book that he purposely broke an opponent’s stray hurley during a Munster SHC game a few years back.
He’s openly discussed how he swapped sliotars during games among other things. A case of doing almost whatever it takes to win.
Nobody can be squeaky clean and Cusack and Cody are hurling men to their very core but they are Cork and Kilkenny men first and foremost. More pertinently, they are active Cork and Kilkenny men.
While they may be at the coal-face as long as they remain in such positions there surely is a tendency in each of them to suit their own flock.
Kildare manager Kieran McGeeney is also on the committee. The tackle is something he’s long wanted clarified. In recent seasons, his players have taken jiu-jitsu and kickboxing classes – excellent ways of getting fit but also brilliant dynamic preparation for hand-to-hand combat.
As GPA chief executive, Dessie Farrell also holds a position on the committee. He has come up with the tap-and-go idea, which could have its merits.
However, he is the current Dublin minor manager and certainly a future senior one.
It’s towards Eugene McGee’s Football Review Committee (FRC) that we can look to as a bastion of independent thinking.
Considering they’ve yet to report anything, that might prove to be a dicey statement but the indications are their work is solely focused on the betterment of the game.
Cynicism is something McGee had written about on several occasions but the feedback they’ve been receiving from supporters and other GAA stakeholders appears to tally with what he has stressed.
The blanket and duvet defences, the swarm and horde rearguards, the fact Gaelic football looks like a glorified version of the children’s game of bulldog... the letters of complaint and concern have been duly noted.
While the blight of the hand-pass has been flagged as much as the decline of the skilful footballer at the expense of the uber-athletic one.
What they can do regarding a new Championship proposal remains to be seen as there doesn’t appear to be much appetite in Croke Park to change the current structure.
However, the appointment of the FRC by GAA president Liam O’Neill indicates that he is taking matters to hand about football.
Hurling, at least from an officiating point of view, will also have to be tackled.
But the fact a playing rules committee continues to exist with so many people who have or potentially have conflicts of interest raises the question of just how serious the GAA wants to improve it games.
Removing active players and managers from it and replacing them with people, former players and managers, would send out the right signals.
It would also demonstrate it’s a group beyond reproach and whose focus is centrally aimed at making Gaelic games better.
Source: http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/iesportsblog/~3/0flmRBncs4k/post.aspx
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