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

2 Games is not the sample size you need. There can be many factors to why you enjoyed them (freshness of seeing it back etc.)

Give it a few weeks and decide.

Time of writing opening league matches have been played. Even matches where my own county were not involved I found myself drawn in. It has been entertaining.

However, in my view that there are two things that drag football down -

1) The advanced mark - has not been used as intended teams have used it as defensive ploy to take the sting out of games - farcical.

2) Both teams playing defensive cagey stuff - if one team does it in contrast to an opponents gung ho style it is grand. But jayus if the teams play the same defensive style, it means constant handpassing and a big gap in the middle of the pitch as the team not in possession sits way off. It does not draw the neutrals in.

Northern teams are ruining it as a spectacle with the keeper playing outfield.

Another good few games it would seem in the Sigerson Cup tonight.

Not bad for a game that's supposed to be terrible.

I was a big viewer but since the calendar changes it seems to have vanished from my radar

I dont think you read what I wrote

"Hand passing itself is not the issue. Its hand passing just as tool to retain possession without attacking intent."

The difference between us is probably that I don't see handpassing in any area of the field as divorced from the ultimate intention to create scoring chances. Soccer teams like Manchester City "play it round the back", and their opposition are invited to do the "press". Gaelic football has adopted that approach to some degree, to the horror of some. Especially when a player passes back to their keeper.

But to me it is a logical development, when coaches discovered that kicking the ball long into 50/50 situations led to fewer chances to get scores. If the handpass is the most effective tool to deploy in this variation of the game, so be it. The players via the GPA shot down the attempt to make them do fewer hand passes.

It can serve that purpose (retention of possession in your own third) when a team is trying to run down the clock. Good entertainment when there are two well matched teams, and four points difference with two minutes to go. But not good when it is used to get Oles from Hill 16 when Dublin are twenty points ahead with ten minutes to go. This would be a time for them to experiment with kick outs to contested positions, and high balls in round the opposition goals.

I think the looking for Oles has possibly come and gone. In soccer some twinkle toes who beats a player twice and then turns round to beat him a third time, will usually get a kick on the shins. Ole merchants run the risk of getting a broken jaw, as well as alienating the fans.

"Football is dead".

Liar.

Gaelic football is like watching paint dry in recent times ... it is poor and boring ... I had to give up watching it and only watch the hurling these days ... the same goes for Irish soccer too ... the spark just ain't there in either game these days ...

I like the goalies coming out the field, when it is used for attacking a "blanket" defence. It can be very effective. The thing I like about it, is that it forces sweepers to man-mark to avoid being overloaded, which allows to kick passing into the full forward line (if only we could get rid of that dreadful mark)

Derry did it to great effect against Kerry last year in the first half. Kerry like set up with Morley sitting in front of and protecting the back 3. But this left them with 12 men trying to defend against a well-organized 14 men (Clifford and McKaigue remaining up the field) and Derry cut them open easily in that first half, forcing Kerry to bring Morley out the field and to pressure Derry much higher up the field which made for a very entertaining game. Its high risk and not to everyones liking, but I think it might be worth the odd howler mistake for the benefits it brings.

We say Kerry do it a lot v Mayo over the weekend and I think we will see a lot more of it from them. Again teams would love to set up against them by double marking or playing someone in front of Clifford, but if Ryan keeps joining the attack, they will be out-numbered and leave overlaps which I'd expect Kerry to exploit much more as the year goes on - A problem they have is that unusually for them they really don't have that many good shooters outside of the Cliffords and O'Shea, which is why the likes of Tom O'Sullivan who can kick a few scores is very valuable.

Mayo when they played Dublin allowed Dublin to have a sweeper sit in front of the full back line all game long and mop up those dinked balls in which he duly did. Mayo are actually quite cautious in attack, The goalkeeper might come out a bit but he won't really join an attack, they will always have 2 or 3 in reserve which allows teams to have an extra man back in front of their full back line. They usually like to break through with pace rather than overloading with the likes of Durcan, Callinan etc.

The score at around 29 mins into the first half waste think, 4 points each

Kind of says it all.

Cannot understand why those running the GAA can't see what going on.

The product is crap.

No mention of the quality goals scored by Derry/Meath/Louth over the weekend eh?

Or the decent play by Armagh?

And there we go, deflection central.

We are being honest describing the game as an enjoyable spectacle.

If you think 37 passes in the opponents half , about 10 yards gained, final kick blocked and then the whole

procedure starts again.

Thats a load of rubbish.

Lack of practice in shooting.

Maybe a rule change could help that. Players who are fouled have to take the free?

Not the worst idea, but at the very least it would force managers/coaches to practice shooting if it meant lads having to have some level of accuracy.

And in doing so, might make them more comfortable in actually taking a shot on.

Lads….stop deflecting…..37 passes back and across… ten yards gained..shot blocked

Rinse and repeat…..there’s your problem.

In the old days it used to be easier to keep up with the scoring. The programme in Navan had a list of all the games between Meath and Louth. The first three results were Meath 1-03 Louth 2-00, Meath 0-06 Louth 0-06, Meath 2-05 Louth 1-04. I know the games were probably only 60 minutes but that is poor entertainment. The game in Omagh had 23 scores, and no game at the weekend had fewer than 20. But some lads would prefer to count the handpasses.