Neil Ewing: An easy fix for football’s woes? Stop players from passing the ball backwards

Joe Kernan’s arrival in Galway coincided with a rule trial for the 2010 league where all handpasses had to be with a closed fist.

The story went that Joe stepped off his helicopter in Galway and put his Tribesmen squad through a 90 min session of hand passing drills where they had to hold a pebble in one hand to ensure their fist stayed closed in compliance with the new rule.

The youthful me was jealous of the cutting edge pebble clutching brought south by Big Joe. The less youthful, more cynical, me hopes that, firstly it happened, and secondly that the time wasted on it played a tiny part in helping us become an insurmountable stone in Galway’s shoe in that year’s championship.

Joe Kernan’s fellow Armagh man Jarlath Burns has made a great start to his tenure as GAA President. His passion and enthusiasm for the basic brilliance of the organisation and its games shines through any time you see or hear him. Burns can’t subdue an infectious excitement at the joy he gets from attending games and watching fear agus mna laidir displaying their skills.

Away from the field he has assembled an exciting Football Review committee and entrusted them with the opportunity to shape the immediate future of football. A great committee brimming with relevant minds and motivations.

As a player I must say I did become bored during games in the second half of my career. There is a primal enjoyment of the breathless exhilaration of feeling flaked during and after a game. Laying down a challenge to the lungs and legs and overcoming it.

Waking up the next morning and enjoying the bruises. Each creaky movement a not subtle reminder of what went well the day before or, more frequently, how you made a show of yourself and need to get recovered for a big week of training.

The chaos dripped out of the game, the mid-week training sessions became tougher than the weekend match. Through a combination of better conditioning and much more detailed tactical awareness/planning the opportunities to feel completely flaked were reduced.

Short bursts of monumental intensity replaced what before was almost constant high intensity. The skill levels went up, the athleticism went up, the intensity went up but the volume of opportunities to showcase all these increases went down.

I always enjoyed the game, still do, even if it now takes an investment of effort to extract the enjoyment.

Given my grumblings, I would be wrong not to share my daft suggestions, when the opportunity is there through the rules committee survey. 

My proffered tweaks would be with the aim of allowing our game to produce a level of enjoyment that will smack us in the face and leave us floundering in awe at what our most skilful players can do now that they are fitter, faster, and more explosive than ever before.

FORWARD PASSES

The ideal? No player allowed to pass the ball backwards. Rugby refs at every level can implement the inverse so this will be no problem to officiate especially when any benefit of doubt is given to the attacking team.

I used this rule last year while helping out with our club. It was wonderful to watch. And interesting to watch instincts having to change in real time. The forward receiving the ball, stopping to pass back but instead having to bury their head and take on the unsuspecting startled corner back. 

The corner back having to deal with his opponent grabbing a ball and pig-headedly motoring towards the black spot. The quarter backs waiting outside for handy ball realising they now had to get a head of the ball with aggressive runs to have any chance of receiving it.

The half back having to look for the half forward line and then realise he needed to open the legs for a 40m sprint to stay in the play. Exhilarating stuff to watch. The only downside I could see as a referee of these games is that they were so enjoyable I often forgot to blow the whistle when defending got over-exuberant, small harm.

The compromise

It’s good to watch but the odd time a flick backward can help a move flow. Only allow a backwards pass inside the opposition 45, maybe?

The worst case

No team allowed two consecutive backwards passes. Will reduce if not eliminate the low risk, low craic play.

OFFICIATING

Hardest job in the game. Too much pressure on one individual. The game we want to watch should be so eventful that one person could not cover the ground to see everything.

For any game where there are neutrals running the line they need to change form, become officials – get them off the line and around the pitch (without interfering with play obviously).

How many contestable line balls are there in a game? A tiny fraction, and of those most could not be correctly awarded by man, woman or Bot. How many incidents of off the ball pulling, dragging, run interference are there? A huge amount. Call them.

The compromise

Stay on the sideline but get more involved in decision making.

The worst case

Carry on wasting talented and trained officials by having them jog up a line with a flag and get asked for a sporadic intervention.

BOOKING PROCESS

Foul. Whistle. Stop. Point. Summon. Explain. Ask name. Write name. Flash card. I am bored just typing that. I am agitated watching the time it allows teams filter players back into defensive positions and those that were approaching fatigue to recover, thereby reducing the likelihood of them making a mistake and creating chaos.

The ref surely has a book that could be numbered 1-26 for each team pre game? Flash the card. Tick the number. Get the ball moving again.

The compromise

The well-intentioned fourth official on the sideline could get something to do to distract from telling supposedly adults to stay in their box on the sideline? (They know the rule so punish them when they break it rather than engage in the pantomime of encouraging them to stay in it. ) Use this time to be the equivalent of basketball sideline official who does the admin-y type work for the referee.

The worst case

Add to the ref’s workload and have them write the names in their book before the game. Then complete the Whistle. Stop. Point. Summon. Explain. Ask name. Write name. Flash card process much quicker.

THE BLACK CARD

It is terrible. Well intentioned but terrible. Any benefit it has been is immediately overshadowed by the unintended consequences it gave rise to. Diving. Players going out of their way to get to ground in various incidents to increase the pressure on refs to black card their opponent.

The time wasted, teams will gladly take black cards at the end of games as it eats down the clock and kills opposition attacks. I could go on.

Yellow and Red Cards are enough. Redefine cynical fouls as fouls where no attempt to tackle the ball was made. (That is the tackle in the game after all?…). Punish a cynical foul anywhere with a 20 metre free in front of the goals.

Punish a cynical foul that denies a clear goal scoring opportunity with a penalty and red card. Harsh? No. We can train players to only tackle the ball? Punish on the scoreboard and let the game flow.

No compromise needed.

THE FORWARD MARK

In a game that has lost the flow that made it brilliantly chaotic to play and watch, the last thing we need is an incentive to stop, pause and avoid chaos. Noble thinking led to its introduction but we can quickly and easily accept its removal will benefit the game.

No compromise needed.

KICK OUT MARK

It is grand at best. Prior to its introduction it could be frustrating to see a midfielder soar, hang and fetch a kickout only to be surrounded on landing and stripped of his ball of leather or blown for overcarrying.

To solve the frustration we took a sledgehammer to the pistachio. Catches of low pinged kickouts onto chests are not followed by 5/6 second delays as a reward for the “fielding”. As an alternative, allow any player who claims a kickout cleanly to take four steps without being tackled.

If they are tackled give the free. Most of the time the player will take four rapid forward steps. In the odd case an opponent tackles them then we are only left where we are at the minute – a free kick to the fielder.

SUBSTITUTIONS

County and club secretaries now need a degree to be fully on top of the substitutions that are allowed to be made by their teams in games. Subs, blood subs, black cards (x 2 teams). Manageable but silly and a lot of wasted time, (x 2 teams).

Consider limiting the number of occasions a team can make subs to reduce the downtime in chaos and increased recovery time. Three slots per game? It will also be a further help to reduce the messing around with dubious injuries and entrances of medical teams that help clock management.

Medics on equals player off or ideally, medics on – play on (common sense re serious injuries in the path of play aside).

TIME

There is so many more practical ways we can manage time and the playing of 60/70 mins in our game. Utilise the extra officials on duty to free the ref up to keep play moving? Benchmark how the LGFA do it better.

Punish cute hoor clock management involving injuries, subs and free taking so we have the ball constantly on the move forward, keeping us effortlessly excited.