FERMANAGH boss Ryan McMenamin believes there was no need to introduce the 'advanced mark' and criticised the time-keeping of his sin-binned player Aidan Breen after watching his side slip to a late Dr McKenna Cup defeat to Antrim on Sunday.
The former Tyrone player was mystified at some refereeing decisions during Sunday’s agonising one-point defeat in Ahoghill, none more so than the manner of the home side’s late winning goal.
But McMenamin envisages problems with some of the new rules that were passed at Special Congress back in October.
“I don’t think anybody really knows how the [advanced] ‘mark’ is working,” he said.
“For us, it’s confusing. That’s the second game in a row now and I’m really looking forward to a Dromore youth match and watching this [advanced] ‘mark’!
“There’s going to be a problem with the [advanced] ‘mark’ later in the year. I don’t think there is any need for it. People tell us there is. It hasn’t changed men getting behind the ball or it hasn’t changed the ball coming in.”
Confusion surrounded one ‘advanced mark’ when Antrim’s Ruairi McCann fetched a high ball and the referee blew his whistle, but because the player didn’t raise his arm to indicate he was accepting the ‘mark’, the passage of play continued, and the scoring chance was spurned.
The incident caused indecision among both sets of players.
At the other end of the field, Fermanagh forward Darragh McGurn caught a high ball, raised his arm and had 15 seconds to convert the ‘mark’.
In the 63rd minute, Aidan Breen was black-carded and sin-binned for 10 minutes but he was denied the chance to return to the action in the final throes of the game.
McMenamin, who has spent considerable time coaching St Macartan’s, Clogher Ladies, feels the men’s game could learn a few things from their female counterparts.
“In fairness, the time-keeping works well in Ladies football; they stop the watch at all times but here it’s not. We couldn’t get our man back in play because they said there was no break in play but there was a break in play. The game now is down to technicalities.
“I don’t think the refs are aware of all the nuances of the new rules and the players aren’t really aware,” McMenamin added, who has stepped up from the assistant manager’s role to the hotseat in 2020.
“The GAA are keen on taking things from different codes. If they took the things from the NFL or AFL everyone would sit down at the end of the year – all coaches, governing bodies, referees, CPA, GPA – and ask what can be done better. But the GAA is a top-down, do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do organisation.”
Despite losing both McKenna Cup matches to Down and Antrim, McMenamin has road-tested a high number of new players ahead of their January 26 League opener away to Kildare.
Lee Jones, Mark McCauley, Ryan Breen, Lorcan McStravick and relative newcomer Darragh McGurn didn’t look out of place against Antrim, while key men Ryan Jones, Conall Jones and Declan McCusker were not involved on Sunday.
“You probably look at more of the negatives when you lose but at the end of the day it’s the McKenna Cup. Of course you’d like another match. We said at the start if we won or lost the first game [against Down] we were always going to make changes and we’d two teams picked for the two games. I’ll probably get slated for doing that.”
