By Patrick Morrison

IN a small village, typical of many small villages across the globe, there lived a young boy.

On his 16th birthday the boy gets a horse as a present. All of the people in the village say, “oh, how wonderful the young boy got a horse for his birthday.”

To which the Zen master says, “we’ll see.”

One day, the boy is riding around and gets thrown off the horse and breaks his leg. He’s no longer able to walk, so all of the villagers say, “awh, how terrible the young boy has gotten badly hurt.”

To which the Zen master says, “we’ll see.”

Some time passes and civil war breaks out within the country and the village goes to war. All of the other young men get sent off to fight, but the young boy can’t fight because his leg has not fully healed. All of the villagers say, “oh, how wonderful the young boy does not have to go off and fight.”

To which the Zen master says, “we’ll see.”

Last weekend the GAA trialled their proposed new rule set on a national scale using the interprovincial series – the old-Railway Cup – as their stage.

Seven new rule changes were looked at and scrutinised by every Gael in the country all having their own viewpoint and opinion in regard to their effect and to the validity of their inclusion next season.

Over the four games no one can argue the openness of each game and the array of scoring on offer. The pace and intensity of these games was at times ferocious and certainly tested the conditioning of all who played, goalkeepers included.

The main purpose of the rules and the remit of the FRC was to improve the game of Gaelic football and make it more of an appealing spectacle to GAA supporters.

Will the new rules improve the game of Gaelic football and make it a better spectacle for people to watch? The simple answer is we cannot know. The trialled games are simply not enough to make a fully informed decision.

The rules need to be trialled under full competitive conditions while also allowing teams to have adequate time to prepare themselves accordingly for their introduction. It may also be prudent to trial them further only at intercounty level as this will be the best level at which we can see if they are viable or not.

For me personally, last weekend’s games were a very unnatural setting to provide any effective evaluation. These types of games tend to be far more open and are usually a throwback to the olden days were teams play more off the cuff and traditional football.

With the reduced contact time teams have to prepare game-plans and the like tend to be more simplistic and follow a more traditional format.

After watching all four games and allowing for the dust to settle, hindsight has highlighted to me that the trial games showed more the characteristics of a hybrid game of basketball and Aussie Rules than ones of Gaelic football.

The games were enjoyable for parts and did create more scoring opportunities which obviously improve it as a spectacle per say. But, during all four games I never felt like I was watching a game of Gaelic football.

Granted they were exhibition games and not in a competitive in-season environment, but it got me thinking of where the game could potentially go both positively and negatively as teams get more time to digest the rules and where they can look to get an advantage in their application.

It is because of this reason I feel it is important that we do not lose the identity of our games and ensure that any rules introduced do not have the opposite effects than what their original purpose has been.

The rules have only been trialled and Gaels have already begun to pick them apart looking for the loopholes. Some examples I have seen or heard are listed below:

– Play your goalkeeper in an outfield jersey and your full-forward in the goalkeeper jersey to negate the back pass rule. Full-forward stays up as part of the 3v3 rule and comes back into the small square for kick-outs.

– To counteract the amount of space on offer with the new rules, reduce pitch size to the bare minimum of 130 by 80 metres.

– Goalkeeper sets the ball down for a kick-out. Goalkeeper plays the ball one or two metres to their preferred kicking side with their foot meaning the goal kick has been taken and the ball is in play, as per current rules. No one on the kick-out team can take the ball into their hands but the goalkeeper can play ball the ball with his feet as many times as he wants – as per current rules.

Outfield players can now come inside the 40-metre arc to receive a ‘pass’ from the goalkeeper because the kick-out has been taken and the ball is now in open play. The goalkeeper can play the ball for a second time, with his foot, by chipping the ball short inside the 40-metre arc for his teammates to come and collect.

These are just three but there have been tens more on offer revealing the nature of coaching in regard to using the rules to their advantage.

The point I wanted to make with this is we need to be careful where we wish the game to go and have the foresight to understand that tactically there will be coaches who will want to set up in certain ways to remove any advantages that any new rules provide for stronger teams.

All in all, I am sure we can agree that change is needed. The important thing to remember though is that there can be no action without reaction.

We must ensure that the reaction to any implemented rules will be a positive one in regard to the coaching innovation applied to the rules.

Right now, we are like the young boy who received a horse for his birthday with everyone overjoyed at the wonderful gift he has received. And like the Zen master’s premonition of what the future reaction will bring, will the new rules do what they have been created to do? We’ll see.

Email: pmgoalkeeping@hotmail.com

Facebook: @MSoG11

X: @MorSchGk