A SMALL piece of timekeeping history will be made in this weekend's Allianz football league games with the potential for certain matches to run considerably longer than normal.
Referees have been instructed to add on specific periods of additional time for not just substitutes but also for Hawk-Eye usages - when games are played at Croke Park - and, intriguingly, when defensive players go up the field to take frees or penalties.
The specific amount of additional time to be added on is 20 seconds per substitute, 30 seconds each time Hawk-Eye is utilised and 20 seconds for each instance of a goalkeeper or defender going upfield for a placed ball attempt.
It's understood that the changes are a recommendation of the Jarlath Burns-led playing rules committee. Because no rule change is required, they weren't forwarded to next month's Annual Congress in Carlow and have instead been put in place in time for this weekend's league action.
Although there is already provision under GAA rules to penalise time wasting, the time allowances will directly frustrate teams who attempt to hold onto a lead late in games by running down the clock with substitutions.
It's acknowledged by GAA officials that adding time for Hawk-Eye stoppages simply makes sense while there have been consistent demands in recent season to account for the amount of time it is taking for goalkeepers to run forward and complete the free-taking process.
The GAA's national match officials manager, Pat Doherty, confirmed the development and predicted that the allowances won't 'add on anything particularly longer' to games. However, in practical terms, Saturday evening's glamour Allianz football league opener between 2015 All-Ireland finalists Dublin and Kerry has the potential to run several minutes longer than normal.
For example, if both teams use their full allocation of substitutes, 12, as they did in last September's All-Ireland decider, if Stephen Cluxton goes upfield for three free-kick attempts and if Hawk-Eye is used twice, then that will amount to six minutes before actual injury stoppages are factored in.
"Basically, the expectation would be that there would be additional time added on for the time taken for substitutes to come on, for Hawk-Eye to be used and for defenders or goalkeepers coming up the field to take free-kicks or penalties, where they're obviously not delaying play but it is taking time," said Doherty.
"So there's an expectation now that time will be added on for those three instances. It looks like the approximation will be about 20 seconds per substitute, about 30 seconds for each use of Hawk-Eye and somewhere around 20 seconds for the players coming up the field.
"We'll be instructing the referees that they must stop their watches for those things to happen, from now on basically.
"The rule book already says that there are incidental and deliberate delays and I suppose what we're attempting to do is make some sort of a definition of something that is an incidental delay."
The powerful playing rules committee considered a number of other potential rules tweaks including the provision of a 'tap and go' rule, to restart play quicker from frees, and a curtailment on the amount of successive hand passes.
Neither of those have been presented to next month's Annual Congress though. Instead, the two proposals submitted relate to the introduction of a 'mark' and a rewording of the rule regarding aggressive fouls.
The mark proposal relates to clean catches from kick-outs that travel beyond the 45 metre line.
