Joe Brolly's Proposals

D9Male

So what do we think about Joe Brolly's proposals to stop the negative tactics that have continued to affect Gaelic football.

More details can be found in the below article:



In brief, he proposes that only 2 players from either team should be allowed between the two 45 yard lines at kickoff. The remaining players are not allowed leave their part of the pitch until one of the midfielders touches the ball. He doesn't mention it in the article, but I suppose if it is windy, the referee could allow the kickout to be taken from further up the pitch.

Thoughts?

D9Male

I am sorry, I don't seem to be able to post links.

Here is the article.

independent.ie/sport/gaelic-games/gaelic-football/joe-brolly-one-simple-rule-can-rescue-gaelic-football-from-the-clonoe-conundrum-31209502.html

Connorzee

I havent read it fully, but I suppose there's an argument that this could slow down play and the potential for a team to waste time towards the end of a match by fellas staying in the "zone" or slowly leaving it. Also whats stopping a keeper taking a short kick out once the zone has been cleared.

slingerz

Connorzee wrote: »

I havent read it fully, but I suppose there's an argument that this could slow down play and the potential for a team to waste time towards the end of a match by fellas staying in the "zone" or slowly leaving it. Also whats stopping a keeper taking a short kick out once the zone has been cleared.

his rule was that the keeper would have to kick it past the 45M line anyway

LeinsterDub

D9Male wrote: »

I am sorry, I don't seem to be able to post links.

Here is the article.

Won't it slow the game down alot as we have to wait for half backs who pushed up to drop back? If you don't wait then keepers just get the ball extremely quickly and boot it to no one in particular to pick up a soft free.

D9Male

His idea is that the referee would give teams (say) 25-30 seconds to get back into position. If the half back has pushed up, the team can nominate another player to drop back to make up the six.

davegrohl48

I would love to see it in operation but it obviously would need a bit more tweaking than what he proposed.
Previously there was a kickout from the 21 after each score.
You can bring all kickouts back out to the 21. You have a straight ahead 24 metre kick or about 30 metres on angled kicks to the wings.
If no one else can touch it then the ball is certain to at least roll past the 45. Could have the punishment for not making past the 45 as being a 45 to the opposition. It would be unfair to have the punishment as a yellow card or a simple 30 metre free. I wouldn't favour retakes as it would be a time wasting ploy even if refs add on time.
I still don't see it as being enough on it's own, there are still several long term problems, these are mostly not recent things.
- Steps and barging, we can't see proper defending as a result. The game is having more 14/15 stone bulldozers who can't solo or kick on their weaker foot. They don't need to use evasive skill, they just put the head down and pump the legs and use illegal hand offs.
- Slowing down of frees being taken. Absolutely chronic and we are so late in addressing this. Aussie rules removed this from their game overnight with a rule change.
The knock on result of what Joe Brolly proposes btw will be teams filling their forward line with big powerful guys who can bulldoze past their 1 to 1 markers. Even selecting bigger defenders to counter that the advantage still lies with the forward as the ball carrier, the defender will be pulled for holding or has to let the defender out of the attempt at holding his ground.

willabur

While I commend him for coming up with ideas this one sounds like a dreadful idea - far too many kickouts in a game

davegrohl48

willabur wrote: »

While I commend him for coming up with ideas this one sounds like a dreadful idea - far too many kickouts in a game

The kickouts are not taken particularly quickly nowadays by some teams. You have a 60 yard jog to get back in position which will take you about 12 seconds.

willabur

davegrohl48 wrote: »

The kickouts are not taken particularly quickly nowadays by some teams. You have a 60 yard jog to get back in position which will take you about 12 seconds.

add in the time it takes to make sure that all players are in their allotted positions - makes it even slower again

davegrohl48

willabur wrote: »

add in the time it takes to make sure that all players are in their allotted positions - makes it even slower again

Had a think there and actually you have a point in that even 5 - 10 seconds more time used up with each kickout compared to now would add up to a significant amount. Around 6 - 8 minutes of playing time could dissappear depending on volume of kickouts.

D9Male

D9Male wrote: »

So what do we think about Joe Brolly's proposals to stop the negative tactics that have continued to affect Gaelic football.

More details can be found in the below article:



In brief, he proposes that only 2 players from either team should be allowed between the two 45 yard lines at kickoff. The remaining players are not allowed leave their part of the pitch until one of the midfielders touches the ball. He doesn't mention it in the article, but I suppose if it is windy, the referee could allow the kickout to be taken from further up the pitch.

Thoughts?

It's not practical enough.

We're not talking about a game here like American Football where teams pre set.

Lets say a team was pushing extra men forward and the ball goes out off play, they're now expected to run back to his stated starting positions before they can attack again.

Also the defending team who have extra men back are going to have to slowly make their way back upfield.

The refs can hardly make ppl sprint to these positions so massive time would be wasted.

Teams may even be happy to use it to waste time by piling everyone forward before just hoofing a shot towards goal as they know even if it goes wide they'll be forced back to these pre kick positions so best to be as far as possible from where you're expected to be.

While the concept seems good, it would only work in a social league where scores aren't counted as it requires honest play on the part of players to get back to position as quick as possible.

Now a variation of this could work in that you follow the AFL and have a centre circle restart after each score... However you could only impose restrictions to the throw in area as opposed to each end otherwise again the whole time wasting issue creeps back in.

Also the whole notion of having to kick a ball a certain distance it's ludicrous.
What happens to the team facing a gale wind, you're buried at HT in technical frees when its not even possible to kick it long.

D9Male

I agree with you, however, I think we might need to have impractical solutions. The game is in pretty rough state. As a Dub, I have always been a football fan before a hurling fan. But in last season's championship, I reckon I watched 4 football games outside of Dubs matches, whereas the corresponding figure for hurling was 8. Football is just a lot less appealing now than it was before teams got clever about how they line up.

I applaud Brolly for proposing a solution; it is not perfect, but I think it would work better than what we have now with a bit of tinkering. There may be even better ideas out there, but I have yet to hear them. For me, doing nothing is not an option.

GBXI

D9Male wrote: »

I agree with you, however, I think we might need to have impractical solutions. The game is in pretty rough state. As a Dub, I have always been a football fan before a hurling fan. But in last season's championship, I reckon I watched 4 football games outside of Dubs matches, whereas the corresponding figure for hurling was 8. Football is just a lot less appealing now than it was before teams got clever about how they line up.

I applaud Brolly for proposing a solution; it is not perfect, but I think it would work better than what we have now with a bit of tinkering. There may be even better ideas out there, but I have yet to hear them. For me, doing nothing is not an option.

Could not disagree more that the game is in a bad state. The issues that need changing are around fixture scheduling, definition of a tackle, yellow card offences for deliberately slowing down a free-kick, time-keeping, and a few other small issues. Not what Brolly is proposing. My God he talks some amount of sh1t.

randd1

Don't think its feasible. Its the ponderous and slow build up play is the problem, I think a few things could be introduced to speed up the game.

Allowing the ball to be bounced twice before being toe-tapped combined with allowing 5 steps instead of four would allow players on the ball to get forward much quicker.

Points cant be fisted, they have to be kicked (force players to improve their kicking).

A direct pick off the ground would probably prevent a few fouls, having to stoop and lift with the foot slows down players allowing opposition players to crowd them.

Would love to see the mark brought in between the two 30 yard lines as well, but with a few rules attached. The mark can only be claimed by a clean catch from a foot pass (the ball cant bounce), and the pass has to more than 20 yards. The player who catches has to kick the ball (obviously). All opposition players have 5 seconds to retreat 15 yards. The kicker has 10 seconds to play the ball or the mark is overturned.

Think those rules would be better rules for the game. There's not much wrong with the skills of the game, its the culture of fear from managers about losing possession and mass defenses to prevent score that's the problem. The slow build up, and unwillingness to take a risk with forward passing that stems from that fear is the result of the problem, and I reckon a proper mark rule could counteract that.

LiamNeeson

If something like this make into practice does that mean that the teams who won All Irelands playing this negative football should not be viewed favourably?
Maybe the Donegal men will have to send back their wee medals from the hills.

This is obviously something Brolly has thought of during one of his long drives back to the oakwoods from the pale, maybe he should stick to listening to the wireless.

davegrohl48

How can you create a more skillful game if you remove the pickup, allow more steps (way too many getting away with already) and allow two bounces? You could select Lebron James fresh from the airport or JJ Watt and they could play those rules. The pickup is not without skill, if you want to see a brilliant exponent of it check Senan Kilbrides ability to pick even under pressure as he shows regularly with a sweeping long style. The tackle problem has always been a problem of barging or allowing body hits. Both players by the rulebook should shadow like basket ball.

Dirty Dingus McGee

Brolly's proposal might work if teams had to line up that way throughout the entire match but as soon as kickouts are taken they will revert to the blanket defence and it will take ages to get players back in position.

Colm Parkinson's idea of 13 a side and having that the 2 full forward and full back lines had to stay inside the 45 at all times was a better suggestion and also it would be easy enough to referee at inter county level.

Also if referee's did their job properly the game would be much better.

keeponhurling

So his issue is that he prefers to see more high catching?
Surely it cheapens it a bit if kick outs are forced to go to one particular zone, which has been cleared in advance.
Would players be obliged to catch, or could they punch it on?

Our club team still pump balls Into midfield from kick outs, as we have a couple of tall lads in midfield who are good in the air. But I would like to think we should reserve the right to adjust tactics as we wish.

Not a great idea IMO.

Teams will always try to counteract other teams/players' strengths, can't have a rule change every time.

davegrohl48

keeponhurling wrote: »

So his issue is that he prefers to see more high catching?
Surely it cheapens it a bit if kick outs are forced to go to one particular zone, which has been cleared in advance.
Would players be obliged to catch, or could they punch it on?

Our club team still pump balls Into midfield from kick outs, as we have a couple of tall lads in midfield who are good in the air. But I would like to think we should reserve the right to adjust tactics as we wish.

Not a great idea IMO.

Teams will always try to counteract other teams/players' strengths, can't have a rule change every time.

I guess the main thing is that the player who high catches will not be crowded by tacklers when he lands with the ball. David Moran of Kerry for example is a great high catcher which we often get to see. But we don't so often get to see him follow up with a nice kickpass at which he is also excellent.

D9Male

Fair enough on your issues with his idea, KOH. But I disagree that rules shouldn't be changed to counteract the way teams are winning.

The offside rule, the backpass rule and the tackle from behind rule in soccer were all brought in to improve the spectacle. There are rule changes in GAA all the time.

Personally, I think the time is ripe for a change to be made, as a lot of the games I see are dull.