Opinion: Can Joe Brolly’s radical rule change for Gaelic football really work?

Lots of love for Joe's idea.

You don't have to check outside for pigs flying or any blue moons today as Joe Brolly is actually getting praise for one of his theories on GAA. The Derry man, who at times seems to just love to stir the pot just for the craic, has written in today's Sunday Independent of what he thinks is a sure fire way of ending the blanket defensive system once and for all. The one-time All-Ireland winner (Pat Spillane told us to write that) explains that a single rule change could put an end to teams playing with thirteen or fourteen men behind the ball,

'One simple rule change, that applies only on the kick-out. The goalkeeper must kick the ball out beyond the 45-metre line. For the kick-out, only the four midfielders can be in the zone between the 45s. The rest of the players must line up as per the throw-in, with six-versus-six inside each 45. They do not have to be in their starting positions, so long as there are six from each team inside each 45. From the kick-out, the ball is not in play until it is touched by one of the midfielders. Until then, the rest must stay inside their 45. I do not advocate for any other playing rule change.'

It seems that lots of people on Twitter are of the same mind

It's not often I agree with @JoeBrolly1993 but can't find a reason to disagree with him on kick outs. #simple#rule#change

— South Antrim GAA (@GAASouth) May 10, 2015

@JoeBrolly1993 trying to find the reasons why your suggestions would fail..can't see any.

— Sean Mc Liam (@Seanmcliam) May 10, 2015

 

@JoeBrolly1993 nice idea joe . I think it might just be the solution. Will they go for it!No chance.Great idea and simple

— Benny Coulter (@Coulter12Benny) May 10, 2015

So it seems that everyone is in favour of the proposal. But will it really work? Firstly if a team wants to play defensively then the kickout proposal isn't going to stop them but it will force them to adapt. A defensively minded team will have their so-called six 'attacking' players on the edge of the 45metre line ready to sprint back into their own half the minute the ball is touched by either midfielder. Trying to get players to change their mindset is not half as difficult as changing a successful template that has guided Donegal and, to a lesser extent, Kerry to Sam Maguire in the last few years When Brolly talks of the 'four midfielders,' does he mean the men with numbers 8 and 9 on their back, or any four players between the two 45s? If it's just the four men named on the teamsheet to play at centrefield, the aerial contest would be a very welcome sight. However we fear that any manager would object to having to play an entire 70 minutes with just two men in the middle and to substitute like for like. Where would Donegal or Kerry go when they want to move Michael Murphy or Kieran Donaghy out to centrefield to win some possession? We also feel that if any four players are allowed contest the kickout then you will see tactical fouling again, as once a midfielder does gain possession he will be stopped by any means necessary. That will allow teams to funnel players back. Keep rotating players in terms of fouling to frustrate opponents and there could be chaos. The black card should have seen an end to that type of fouling, but as anyone who watched last year's Championship knows only five black cards were shown between the three All-Ireland semi-finals and final, with 51 cards in total handed out during the entire championship. Time-wasting is a massive scourge in the GAA and the issue of restarts and how slow/quick they can be depending if a team is ahead or behind is a massive issue. This new kickout won't do anything to solve that and in fact the biggest problem is how slow it will make the game. Consider a team that is attacking en masse a la Donegal. They get a score with twelve of their players inside the opposition 45 metre line. Once the flag is raised by the umpire Donegal do not retreat quickly to assume their six man position inside the own half, but instead amble back to slow down any possible quick kickout. Perhaps a player goes down to tie his laces or get some water. No restart remember until all six in position so players can use up all the tricks in the book to slow the game down as much as they want. Brolly hates short kick-outs anyway and he describes them as the pillar of boring football.

 Brolly does foresee this issue but we don't feel his sanction will be practicable,

'We know it can work, since it is what we did until less than a decade ago. Nor will there be any delay in kicking out because of this. The current average time between a ball going dead and a long kick-out is 20-25 seconds, which gives adequate time to form up. The referee will signal to the goalie when to kick out. This could be clocked at say 25 seconds maximum, with infringements being penalised by a 30-metre free in.'

Timekeeping has never been a strong point of the GAA and if this is to work then surely there should be a new clock system introduced. And we all know how well the hooter system worked when it was voted in at Congress. That's right, it went out again without once being used in any Championship game. Also the idea that a goalkeeper will lob the ball out beyond 45 metres is acceptable in inter-county action but what at club and different age levels? We'd imagine that some 'keepers could struggle to hit the ball that far if they're playing into a gale-force wind in Belmullet in Mayo? Brolly has responded to those questions on Twitter today https://twitter.com/JoeBrolly1993/status/597328886695927808 Last year around the time of the All-Ireland final we heard Kerry great Jack O'Shea propose something similar when on RTE radio. He suggested that the ball has to travel is 45 metres and that he wanted to re-introduce what he felt was missing from Gaelic football, the contest. There's little doubt that Brolly's proposal would be very interesting, even for a year basis or for a spell in the league, to see how it would change GAA and teams' approach to both attack and defence. But we can't see Kerry, Donegal, or the now more defensively minded Dublin agreeing to this option. And even if the optics of GAA seem to suggest that Gaelic football is in dire need of reform, last year's Championship had a record number of average scores at 34.92 points and five less frees per game on average than the season before. Brolly has opened up a much needed debate and proposed a solution that may have some creases but overall this would certainly be the most innovative change to GAA in a generation.