Donegal manager Jim McGuinness believes that “tactical fouling” is becoming a major issue in Gaelic football and as a result, the game is slower than fans would like it to be.
The Glenties man first took over his native county in 2011, winning the Ulster title in his first year, and shocking the country the following season when he guided them to All-Ireland glory.
However, in doing this McGuinness created a game-plan that many believe left made the game hard to watch, as he would have every one of his players behind the ball, and stopping the opposition from scoring was priority number one.
This game plan was then adopted by other counties, particularly when McGuinness left his role in 2014, and the entertainment factor at football matches was getting lower and lower.
In order to counter the blanket defence, a possession-based game was introduced, where your priority was to keep the ball, not kick it into the mass defence, and only shoot when the scoring percentages were high.
Although this tactic was effective in beating the blanket defence, it hasn’t helped the entertainment side of things as lateral hand passes, and slow moves up the pitch were becoming the normal, and now that the Donegal man is back in charge, he wants to see a change in the way that football is played.
“We want to play transitional football”, Mcguinness told RTE.
“A lot of times it is not possible. There is a lot of tactical fouling going on, a lot of people slowing the game. I’m not sure if the officials are up to same level in terms of what the opposition teams are looking to do.
“If the game is to become faster in that way, then things like that need to be nipped the bud early on or else it continues on for the rest of the game.
“It’s difficult to progress the ball quickly, probably because of possession football. In possession football, you are pushing 13, 14, 15 players on. The counter-balance to that is that if you lose it then you are in big, big trouble, so you cannot allow a transitional moment.
“Even now when you do get the turnover, you’re probably not going to get up the field the way you want to get up the field because of that dynamic.”
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