Larry Ryan: Maybe Gaelic football is ready to feel the sandbox under its feet

It’s hard to know if they are being entirely honest with themselves, these fine men, when they talk fondly about the ‘sandbox games’ they are overseeing week in, week out. When they enthuse about the spectacles they are witnessing under these “rule enhancements” they have devised.

Because let’s face it, if you assembled 30 decent Gaelic footballers and let them enjoy it under the current rules, with nothing much at stake, it might look grand, without a control freak of a manager haunting every move they make, insisting they play all the percentages.

Some of these rules might even survive the league without being truly ‘stress-tested’, as Maurice Brosnan delicately put it. But when the dark heart of championship gets at them, nothing from a Dublin Gaelic football man will have been tested more thoroughly since Kevin Moran was towed across a field by a tractor to sustain the grass stains that would assess the powers of Radion washing powder.

Still, given the intellects involved, we should try to be optimistic. For it is clear that deep in their hearts, these must be optimistic men, now they have stepped away from the darkness of championship.

No doubt there’s plenty to welcome. Putting goalies with notions back in their box for starters.

And you certainly have to applaud the faith in humanity baked into the requirement that a player who commits a foul should hand over the ball to the free-taker in “a prompt and respectful manner”. And maybe that is what will happen, during championship. But it is also possible to envisage scenes of sarcasm reminiscent of the time Fr Jack apologised to Bishop Brennan or when Pep Guardiola thanked the referee so much after a defeat by Liverpool.

Just in case humanity lets them down, they have added a Declan Rice rule — a 50m penalty for delaying a free. And that is the essential quandary nobody can answer until we roll out of the sandbox and into a working quarry. Will carrot or stick prove more persuasive in championship? Is there a core of optimism buried deep, deep down under Gaelic football’s layers of cynicism?

When the optimist talks about the four-point goal being a tremendous incentive for enterprising play, others might anticipate a terrible existential dread of conceding a four-point goal. And a double-locking of every security device currently employed.

When we hear about a free kicked from outside 40m being worth two points, the optimist will envisage a serious deterrent to foul play, while others might suspect it will encourage the exaggeration of fouls in this profitable terrain. Or maybe the relocation of fouls to just inside this line in the ledger.

There is also a ‘solo and go’ rule to speed up the game, to encourage the fouled player to proceed about his business swiftly. But would the optimist — or even the realist — solo and go into one-point territory, or put down the ball and summon his keeper to welly it for two, treating us to another two-minute pantomime of his kicking ‘process’?

And considering the new unlimited advantage rule, if he does solo and go, and kicks one point, should the ref call him back for a go at two?

I sense it’s this ‘solo and go’ ruling that could yet truly take the pulse of the championship’s dark heart. Let’s paint an ugly picture. The tasty inside man is through on goal, but is hauled to the ground in time-honoured fashion. 

His assailant has already come to terms with the inevitably of his black card, heroically copped in the line of duty. But what’s this? The will-o-the-wisp inside man is wriggling free. 

He is attempting to solo and go, to serve double punishment. He must be subdued. The existential question may soon have to be asked: How far are you prepared to go to prevent a four-point goal?

This 40m arc has raised a few more red flags, before an umpire reaches for any. With umpires not always certain if the ball splits the posts, will they really be sure where it set off from? Doesn’t it heap added pressure too on every small decision out around the middle? Even a sideline call will now bring a potential two-point sting.

We must take into account that administration of GAA regulations is traditionally based on the measurement philosophy of ‘there or thereabouts’. Every free is taken somewhere in the vicinity. Every 45 or 65 in or around. Are we ready for refs to embrace precision, while one eye is on making sure the three lads up top haven’t sneaked into their own half?

Another dark scenario. All-Ireland semi-final, one- point game. Raking shot from in or around the 40 drops over. The red flag goes up, the referee agrees. TV soon shows your man was a foot inside. It’s Lampard v Germany in reverse. The thick end of the wedge that sees VAR demanded.

Hurling will then have to get it too, and hurling couldn’t survive VAR, whatever Mark Landers reckons.

We’re deep in unintended consequences territory now. And we could be worrying about nothing, with this nit-picking.

Maybe these fine men have properly felt the pulse of a game longing to be set free. They have seen it all. They have encountered every dark art, pulled every trick in the book. They have faced into the dark heart of championship and came out smiling, their optimism intact.

Maybe they detect football is ready to let go of cynicism, to let down its hair, to feel the sandbox under its feet.

Though like the two-pointer, it’s a long shot.

Helping her next move

Some of the narrative around girls’ sport can get a bit much, with a near-constant assumption girls need role models and campaigns to coax them into action, when so many appreciate sport perfectly well without any persuasion.

There is none of that in the brilliant video released yesterday by Sport Ireland for International Day of the Girl.

This clever short piece, titled ‘It’s Complicated’, is not a love letter to sport, rather a ‘breaking up’ voicenote.

The dropout of girls from sport is real. And the video sets out plenty of factors why girls grow apart from sport, like school pressures, friends, body image and periods, and plenty of avoidable factors, like overzealous coaches, lack of playing time, and unsuitable gear.

Launched by former Ireland rugby player Nora Stapleton, now women in sport lead at Sport Ireland, there’s a hermoves.ie hub to go with the campaign, with resources for teenagers, parents, coaches, and teachers.

Stapleton says: “Being a teenage girl is complicated. They are changing, growing, developing new interests, and navigating so many other things. Her Moves isn’t about changing sport to suit teens, it’s about trying to help sport grow with them.”

The video captures the joy and fun everybody gets from sport but it is also a plea for understanding. And the voicenote signs off on a hopeful note that this romance still has legs.

“Listen sport, I don’t want to lose you.”

Heroes and Villains

STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN

Heimir Hallgrimsson: Give the man his flowers now, in case the Greeks have no gifts for us. Who knew that all it would take to lift our ennui were those magic words he delivered at half-time: “Shit happens.”

Bonner Maher: His clubmate Ken Hogan’s description still stands unparalleled: “An unassailable appetite for torture."

HELL IN A HANDCART

Jurgen Klopp: The clues were there about his next career in some spoof he did for the Economist: “Mr Klopp has drawn back the veil on a crucial ingredient of success in almost every walk of life: Energy.”