Sport

Mixed response from Brolly's guinea pigs for rule proposal

An exhibition game was arranged last weekend to try out a playing rule change proposed by RTÉ pundit Joe Brolly – Seán O’Neill canvasses opinion from some of those who lined out...

Former Roscommon and St Brigid's forward Frankie Dolan believes Joe Brolly's proposed rule could work  
Former Roscommon and St Brigid's forward Frankie Dolan believes Joe Brolly's proposed rule could work   Former Roscommon and St Brigid's forward Frankie Dolan believes Joe Brolly's proposed rule could work   (Barry Cregg / SPORTSFILE/SPORTSFILE)

A TRIAL run for a GAA playing rule change proposed by RTÉ pundit Joe Brolly has received a mixed response from some of the players who road-tested it.

The proposal – that, for kick-outs, the only players allowed between the two 45s are the four midfielders – was tried out during an exhibition match at the home of Truagh Gaels between an Ulster select and a Rest of Ireland side last Saturday evening. Former Roscommon sharpshooter Frankie Dolan played on the Rest of Ireland team and had some interesting thoughts on the proposal.

“If your own midfielder could win the ball clean and turn and kick it, you definitely have more space in your forward line straight away,” said Dolan.

“But if it’s a thing that they are scrapping for possession, there’s a chance for say the half-forward line on the other team to sprint back and maybe put a shield up.

“The rule mightn’t be too bad. I would say that it would want to be experimented with by inter-county players who are playing at the moment in a lot of games.

“The rule might even take out big midfielders dominating the game. If you had two nippy players who were physical enough, on their own kick-out – if they were very fast, they could get into a lot of space if [the goalkeepers] were very accurate and could ping a ball out to his chest.”

Tomás McCann of Cargin and Antrim played for Ulster at centre half-forward and he also was of the view that, if the rule were implemented, goalkeepers would have an even more central role. 

“The ’keeper is going to have an even more pivotal role because, if he underhits the ball at all, he has, straight away, hung his man out to dry,” said McCann.

“Just say he picks a wing, if he underhits it, his man is going to be static and an opposing player is going to be coming through and probably winning it, so the ’keeper is probably under more pressure.

“It’s probably one of those things that it would have to be seen in a team scenario where it could be worked on to see the benefits of it. It can work, but I also think it is putting more pressure on referees [in terms of] encroachment on both sides.”

McCann can also see bigger, more traditional midfield players suffering.

He continued: “It will still not do the art of high fielding [any good] because it will be a running game – you will probably end up with two smaller players in the middle.

“You will probably end up maybe doing the opposite with it – maybe actually the bigger fellas will find it harder to get onto the team.”

Former Meath forward Joe Sheridan also lined out for the Rest of Ireland team – managed by Séamus McEnaney and Glenn Ryan – and he admits he is not a fan. 

“I wasn’t fond of them to be honest,” said Sheridan. 

“I think they slowed the game up a lot because, say if the midfielder got the ball and he ran and he kicked a score, he would have to run back out. The ’keeper then has to wait until the whole team is set up [again]. And the midfielders would want to be fairly fit now to be playing in that system. Because [the rest of the players] had to be outside the two 45s, the midfielders were nearly having to jump and get the breaks as well while they were there. 

“You might not touch the ball for 20 minutes because the game could pass you by so much. I don’t think there was much thinking around the idea – I think it was just sort of an off the cuff idea, ‘we’ll try this out.’”

Tyrone’s two-time All-Ireland winner Davy Harte felt that whether or not the rule is viable is dependent upon it being properly tested in a more meaningful game. However, he was impressed by some of the high fielding on show.

Harte said: “There certainly would have been examples of high fielding that people are after. Kalum King was particularly impressive in terms of the aerial battle. 

“Whether or not it would work in competitive games remains to be seen. If you divide the pitch into three thirds, you probably have 12 people in one end and 12 in the other, whereas you only have four in an area of a similar size.

“So teams could probably exploit it in terms of putting smaller, more pacy men in the middle who would run to the wings and, given the level of accuracy of ’keepers these days, it would be very easy to pick out a fast midfielder running to the wing.”