Meath legend Anthony Moyles fears for the future of gaelic football but admits his concerns are not rooted in the rules.
The GAA has issued a list of experimental rule changes for Gaelic football. They are designed to make the game a more attractive spectacle.
The GAA want to implement them on a trial basis throughout the 2019 Allianz Leagues. If approved, they will come into full effect for the Championship in 2020.
Among the proposals to help improve the game is to restrict the number of consecutive hand passes to three, they also want the ball must be played forward from every side line kick.
There are proposals to extend the ‘mark’ inside the 20m line from a kick delivered on or beyond the 45m line without it touching the ground.
The sin-bin rule will also get another outing having been trialled but not implanted at championship level before. New plans to change restarts also will radically changed the way kick-outs are taken.
For a kick-out, only two players from each team shall be positioned between the two 45m lines. The goalkeeper and a maximum of six players from each team shall be behind the respective 45m lines, until the ball is kicked.
The ball from the kick-out shall travel beyond the 45m line before being played by a player of the defending team.
The plans dominated much of the discourse on OTB AM on Wednesday. Anthony Moyles and Enda McGinley were with Eoin and Ger to discuss the proposals.
Moyles feels they fell well short of making the meaningful change that will actually help the game:
“Look I can see why people are interested in incremental change, but I’m worried I think the game is suffering from a lot bigger issues than just rule changes, let’s not even start on the fixtures stuff.
“You’re tinkering around the edge with this where actually the core of this, the core of football is rotten and it’s rotten all the way down to the club game and the GAA authority talk about hurling and always these fanstastic games
“But there’s not many great games of hurling in April and May when they play off the old whatever it's called now the Christie Ring Cup and next thing they have of all the big names and everyone focuses on the big names.
You cna watch the full discussion on YouTube:
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