Jim Gavin not too happy about the potential rule changes it seems.
Which changes?
The marks introduced in the league.
The offensive mark can’t be brought in for championship until next year’s Congress, if at all. It’s a very distant prospect, hardly worth his while getting worked up over.
He’s smarting at not making the league final. I would agree that I wouldn’t like the mark being introduced.
Hard to judge when so few teams made an effort to incorporate it into their plans. Tyrone definitely benefitted from going more direct, but I dunno if that was directly related to the mark.
The bit I saw of Kerry they seemed to put a lot of emphasis on it for some reason
I think a lot of sides in Div 1 made good use of it - Kerry, Monaghan and Tyrone did so. I do think it makes things very difficult for a defender though and I don’t like meddling because managers can’t work away around tactical innovations. Let the game take its course, there seems to be a gradual move away from the mass defences again.
Defending a long delivery one-on-one is the bread and butter of a back’s job I would have thought. I don’t see dragging a load of men back as any real kind of innovation, and it hasn’t done much for the game as a spectacle.
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McGuinness brought Donegal from a laughing stock to the best side of the country with those tactics.
It’s not defending on on one that’s the issue, it’s not really a problem when a forward wins a ball with his back to goal for a back, if they are goal side and close to him they can shepherd the attacker away from danger. A lot of defenders are content to let the attacker get the ball because they are confident they can still negate him doing anything with it.
If they new rule comes in then it just allows the attacker to win the ball and have a free shot at goal under little pressure. That’s very unfair on a defender, it’s the defenders job to stop the forward from scoring, not stopping the forward from getting on the ball.
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The best defenders do both.
Well if those new rules came in full time they only have one avenue, I don’t think it’s fair on the defender and makes things far too easy for the attackers who really are the ones who should have the onus on them.
I’d much prefer to see an accurate long delivery and great catch like what McShane did at the weekend*. I thought O Ceallaigh was very poor at the same time in a key facet of full-back play. Being tight to your man is a basic requirement of defending and if you’re there on his shoulder the fella kicking in the ball won’t take on that pass. I don’t think it’s particularly unfair on a defender to ask him to do his job.
*Admittedly that was a fairly speculative kick in.
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You can be tight to an attacker but generally you don’t take the risk of being caught out goal side. O’Ceallaigh was too preoccupied with the mark at the weekend, he was trying to get out in front, it’s all stacked for the attacker. It shouldn’t be, it’s hard to take delight in the performance of an attacker when it’s easy.
Conor McManus has taken forward play to another level the last few years, it’s been a joy to watch and it’s due to the difficult environment he has had to operate in.
You don’t go charging out in front when the ball in has a gale behind it. He wasn’t even within a yard of where the ball landed. I couldn’t agree that it’s stacked to the attacker when there’s a bigger skill requirement to deliver the ball accurately, time your movement off your man and catch the ball under pressure. That is what the game is supposed to be about for me, but you would rather a different poison. Each to their own.
The game is not meant to be about attackers winning a ball with their back to goal and then play stopping the defender backing off ten yards and the attacker given 10 seconds to compose himself to take a free shot at goal.
Look at some of the scores McManus has got in recent years, he wins a ball with a defender breathing down his neck, a lot of the time a second one for good measure, his back is to goal, he turns takes his man on, sometimes the defending is textbook, they drive him further away from goal and from an impossible angle he delivers a wonder score.
What happens when the mark is introduced? He wins the ball, play stops, the defenders retreat and McManus taps up over a fairly simple score under no pressure. It’s unbelievably stacked towards an attacker. Murphys wonder score against Galway a few years back in Croke Park where he fetches an unbelievable ball and nails a superb point on the spin - that never happens with a mark - never. He’s not going to play on and score that point, he’s going to take his mark and tap over a simple point.
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I’m not arguing for the mark as it is, it’s a bit sterile as you say. I do prefer more kicking of the ball though and that rule does encourage it, even if it’s not perfect.
McManus is nearly superhuman some of the stuff he does. I don’t think he needs any help.
I don’t think the kicking is necessarily borne from the mark. With Tyrone it’s to do with them trying to find a way that might help them beat Dublin, something that makes them less one dimensional and adds another string to their bow.
I think irrespective of the mark they were embarking down that route, they had been trying to kick it more the last few years but the likes of Bradley, Brennan and McAliskey were not going to win the type of ball Donnelly and McShane were so when it was coming back out the players naturally desisted.
The mark itself puts the defender at a disadvantage, Sean Marthy Lockhart was probably the best man marker I’ve seen, he was like glue to his man but he was always hands on right on his man’s back when he got the ball, he was always in a position where he was on the right side and could force the attacker away from goal when the ball in was right. Under the mark, if the ball is right then there is nothing the defender can do and I don’t think that is right. It’s too easy for an attacker in that case. You can throw any donkey in there who can win a ball and they can have a free shoot at goal from a not too difficult angle.
I don’t think teams are kicking the ball more as a result of the mark, there has been a widening gulf in recent years, going defensive is a reality of teams trying to stick with teams who would beat them in a shootout. Donegal are the only team to have beaten Dublin in Championship under Gavin, they did it with a strong defensive shape and early ball into the wide spaces. Since then teams tried to hone in on that perceived weakness of Dublin but Dublin have evolved and in recent years didn’t commit as many forward and close off the space for the early ball in. So now teams are changing tactics against Dublin again.
It’s the evolution of the game, when things don’t work, managers will come up with something new. Tampering with rules to force sides to play a certain way is utterly wrong and unnatural.
We might see teams with a more exciting brand of football this year and here’s hoping we do.
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I’d agree with that, but I think the game is/was gone too possession-orientated, and all the coaches were reading from the same playbook. Everything evolves anyway, hopefully at least.
We haven’t really seen how the mark will work out in practice because up to now the assumption has been that it will be discontinued.
It’s a fundamental change to the sport and would completely change the way teams attack.
You can only see how such a rule would work out if it is introduced in the championship.
That doesn’t need to happpen because from the limited use of it that we’ve already seen, it’s shit. It isn’t Gaelic football.