“If you were coaching teams and you were allowing that to happen, I would have loved to have marked one of those corner-backs.”
The way that Gaelic football had evolved in recent years, led to the change of defensive set-ups, in particular with the corner-backs.
The art of man-marking had changed, backs were encouraged to get out in front of their forwards, safe in the knowledge there would be a sweeper in behind them.
The idea was that they would mark their forwards zonally, rather than traditionally sticking tight to them and always being goal-side.
Colm Parkinson was suggesting on the GAA Hour that maybe for the All-Ireland hurling final, that maybe Cork would adopt a change of tact, and there was perhaps an argument for the back to move out of position slightly.
“This ball is coming and Limerick sign-post it, and you know it’s coming.
“Why are defenders not taking a step on the outside of that? I know the danger is that Flanagan will turn back and go again, but they never get one down the line though, they are always diagonal, always.”
Former Galway star Damien Hayes, didn’t exactly agree however.
https://twitter.com/SportsJOEdotie/status/1428446677610938371
“What Limerick do and they do, and they do it brilliantly, and to be fair, Cork do it, and they do it brilliantly as well, is call a 70-30 ball Colm.
“You’re getting the ball and you’re hitting it 70-30, in the favour of the forward, but the back man can not be on the wrong side of the goals, the back man must play closest to his posts, because you take any top forward, and I think Gillane… I still think Gillane is the main man in that forward line, I know you speak about Flanagan.
“Like Gillane should have scored a goal in the first half against Waterford, I know he put it over the bar and then he scored a goal. Gillane is a scorer.
“But Colm you can not… rule number one when you’re training the u7s and u9s, you can not tell your corner-back to play on the outside, and you’re basically telling them to play on the sideline.
“And personally, if you were coaching teams and you were allowing that to happen, I would have loved to have marked one of those corner-backs, because what I used to love was, when the ball used to come in, if the ball bounced in front of you, you were taking the ball on the turn, and when you take the turn, you’re receiving, you’re hitting it towards the black spot of the goal.
“So if that happens, your corner-back is behind you. So no Colm, you will not see that in the All-Ireland final where the corner-backs will be playing on the sideline side of the back, and I’ll let Paddy Stapleton explain the rest.
“Rule number one, I’d say if that happened Diarmuid O’Sullivan would run out onto the pitch with a pair of shorts, and such an eating he would give his corner-backs.
“Rule number one, no that will not happen.”
“Damien, you’re making me sound like I’m a terrible gobshite altogether,” laughed Parkinson.
“That’s rule number one Colm, a back marks his man, and rule number two, your corner-backs stay on the goal-side of your man to protect the goals, now Paddy Stapleton will elaborate more because he played corner-back.”
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