Why wont die hard GAA fans admit football these days is muck?

ye dont understand the game - that all

Give me an example of a field sport that is great to watch as a neutral if you have no dog in the fight. I want to hear about this sport so that Gaelic Footbal can strive to attain its status.

Gaelic Football is always being bashed, ya if you are looking as a neutral at leauge games in March and expecting to be entertained you are going to be sorely disappointed.

But then again I watched some of the Dublin Mayo and Dublin Kerry knockout championship games in the last decade and they were probably some of the best games of football ever played and up there with any sport for entertainment value.

Golf? because if you mean hurling you are having a laugh.

I totally disagree, if you paid me I wouldn't watch a hurling leauge game, I'd watch an odd championship game but all I see is groups of lads poking sticks trying to get a ball out of a pile of bodies before the referee decides to throw the ball in before they do it all over again.

Or else somebody lamps a ball you may or may not be able to see from their own half over the bar, I think.it is a seriously flawed sport.

Would watch a junior club football sooner than most county teams . That said I'd happily watch dublin v kerry v mayo v Galway. They play good attacking football

Good point

People will happily watch premier league soccer every week, but wont ever watch a game from the Dutch league or French or even League of Ireland.

I think the bigger problem in the football - as a spectacle - is that not enough teams are consistently excellent - you have Dublin, Kerry, Mayo.....and then a cohort that can be good for a year and then drop back. The pool of top teams is too narrow. In the past 12 years, you've had 8 all ireland final appearances for Dublin, 6 each for Mayo and Kerry. Nobody else has really been at the races, consistently.

Fully agree with OP. I was a steward in croker for almost 20 years on and off. Lucky enough to witness some sublime matches, fielding that would slot nicely into ozy rules and proper ballers allowed by management to foot pass. Watched Dublin v Derry last night and it was absolutely muck. As the panel pointed out after the refs are so inconsistent giving frees we now have in every single game dives become the norm. Its not the game we love but once it creeps in it won't be changed without hefty rule changes

Just don't watch Football anymore and don't miss it. Its a brutal sport now.

Sort out the fouling…reduce players on the pitch by more precise and error free refereeing which sanctions bad fouling and repeat fouling with something more then a whistle being blown… yellow, black and red is a reminder for these lot of appalling, unfit, unable, unwilling and unsporting referees… they are fücking beyond awful.

I'm very glad I looked into this thread. Personally I don't watch any sports on the TV. The best way to participate is to play IMO (although I'll freely admit I've no interest in team sports anyway)

Sometimes I feel like I'm missing out when listening to people discussing the latest sportsball match between generic team A and generic team B

This thread has reassured me that I'm not missing anything and I'll continue to not watch sports 😁

Bring in a half pitch rule like basketballs half court rule, once you bring the ball over the half it can’t go back over or you forfeit possession.

Must keep a minimum of 3 players in your own and the the opposition half at all times.

Bring in a shot clock if needs must. Bring in a half way line clock if needs be.

Plenty of ways to counter 15 man possession passing and full team defending in your own half without reinventing the wheel.

You look at games like Derry v Dublin, and although at times the teams had 15 men inside their own 45, there were still 25 scores in the game.

A score less then every 3 minutes.

The late 90s/early 00s does stick out as a period where some of the finer points of gaelic football were best exhibited, coming after the era or hoofing the ball into the vicinity of your best ball winner and hoping he wins his duel, and the zonal marking/puke football that came after.

The incredible play of Maurice Fitzgerald, Padraig Joyce, Ciaran McDonald & others and some of the battles they had with opposing defenders are still so iconic to this day. Saying that, the there were plenty of counties without this calibre of player and the no shortage of low scoring, poor quality games, particularly around this time of year. Not exactly worse than today's bad games where you have 30 well conditioned athletes execute a defeinsive game plan to nullify each other, not much better either.

That is a very small element of the game. No one thing could be selected as summing up the modern game. It includes the short kick out, sometimes countered by a high press, sometimes not contested. The short passing game to retain possession until a scoring opportunity arises, facing a blanket defence. Nearly every player including the two keepers in one half of the field by times. Passes back to the keeper if deemed useful.

What summed up the old game was much simpler. Long kick outs for four midfielders to contest, and in turn to kick long. Forwards were there to score, and defenders were there to stop them. The rest of the team looked on from afar at these set contests.

But of course it is not as black and white as that, since there are still long kickouts, and high fielding is a skill which continues. The high ball into the goal area is still a tactic. And no doubt back in the day some defenders roved up the field, and some forwards helped out the defence at times. One thing which could be said about the new game, is that it must demand a higher fitness level to execute, compared to catch and kick.

Ya that's my point all field sports at the top level where there is a lot at stake are compulsive viewing.

Coming out and calling a sport "muck" because you are not entertained watching random teams in a humdrum leauge competition is a stupid comment.

As I said back up this statement with an example of a field sport that is brilliant to watch at an equivalent level, before labelling one sport "muck"

I watched a bit of Aussie Rules and while it has some good elements it is very stop start and highly tactical. In fairness to that sport the tackle is defined.

American Football I know nothing about apart from watching Super bowl finals. The action comes in spurts from what I have seen and there is an awful lot of forced razzmatazz to fill the gaps. It is supposed to be a gamblers dream which like horse racing would explain a lot of its popularity.

It all depends OP on what you want to call a "die hard GAA fan".

Listen to Radio Kerry anytime they are talking about football and all you have are these guys from the 80s complaining about how numbers on backs of jerseys don't seem to matter anymore, or how keepers come up to take frees, or how Armagh are using Ethan Rafferty, etc

They think the game was better when all you had were individual battles and let the best man win that individual battle.

But things have changed, it's been 20 years since the swarm defence, the infamous "puke football" which Spillane later apologized about calling it.

It been 20 years of possession football, keepers coming up to take frees, blanket defenses etc.

For a die hard GAA fan under 30 this is the football they have grown up with.

And yet the game is still popular, the sky has not fallen is as many predicted.

I watched four games on TV this weekend, two of which as a complete neutral, and I enjoyed them all for different reasons.

Ethan Rafferty playing the way he does is great to watch.

The hard running fast movement play is great to watch.

The hard physical challenges that force turnovers are great to watch.

And counter attacks at speed from those turnovers are great to watch.

People always complain that football is dying, or is dead if they continue to do x, y and z, but it's not, it's still very much alive.

Football can be boring if it’s two poor teams or one very negative team , but so can soccer and rugby . The difference is at least supporters of these sports can just come out and say when a match or season is shite

But god forbid anyone say that about a hurling match , all you get is the same bullshit “ warriors , magicians , best game in the world “. Maybe football people should just ignore the bad stuff like the hurling cult and just pretend everything is wonderful all of the time