Malachy Clerkin: Managers always moan about new rules, but they might be right this time

There may be moaning ahead. Actually, who are we kidding? There’s no “may” about it. There will be moaning ahead. There always is. There’ll be moaning, noon and night. We’re all bound for moaning town. Baby, we were born to moan.
Okay, that last one didn’t really work. It was an earnest attempt that came up short, despite good intentions. Think of it as a kind of tribute to how tricky it’s going to be over the coming months to get everything to align perfectly.
We speak, of course, of the coming changes to Gaelic football, a game which is simultaneously the most loved and hated thing in Irish sport. A completely precious, cherished slice of our national culture. And at the same time, a thoroughly beaten-down object of derision and ballyragging.
Lately, as we all know, the balance has tilted inexorably towards the latter. Nobody holds back when they’re talking about football these days. “The game itself is appalling,” said Niall Moyna in the Examiner during the week. “It’s probably the most boring game in the world to watch.”
That’s Niall Moyna, the Louth selector. That’s Louth, this year’s Leinster runners-up and All-Ireland quarter-finalists, the county that just got four All-Star nominations in a single year for the first time in the history of the scheme. Louth have been a great story and are a credit to their people but they’re nobody’s idea of the great entertainers.
If anything, you’d have thought a team like Louth would have a vested interest in keeping the game as boring as possible for as long as possible. But that’s where we are — the era of massed defence and dropping off and grinding periods of possession is dreary even to those in the middle of it all. Maybe even especially to them.
Deep in the background of all this, Jim Gavin’s Football Review Committee (FRC) is beavering away. We are fast approaching the point at which the rubber of their deliberations meets the road of the public getting to see how it all might work in real life. The interprovincial games under the proposed new rules are fixed for Croke Park in four weeks and already the stakes feel weirdly high. Help us, Obi-Jim. You’re our only hope.
As has been noted by Sligo manager Tony McEntee among others, at every step along the way the FRC has been set up to succeed. Jarlath Burns spent his first bit of political capital on setting the committee up straight out of the gate. The roll call of football big brains on the list was unimpeachable. Everything about it screamed: “The top brass wants this done so let’s get it done!”
Even the initial survey was very clearly weighted towards the notion that the game is broken. One of the questions listed a series of aspects of the game — cynical fouling, continuous handpassing, overly defensive play, among others — and asked respondents to say whether they liked or disliked them. As McEntee notes, there was no option to say, “I don’t mind.”
[ Seán Moran: Let’s hope Jim Gavin’s FRC isn’t the latest example of squandered expertiseOpens in new window ]
And you know what? The vast majority of people are fine with that. Whatever misgivings they might have about a casually gerrymandered survey are outweighed by their desire for change. They’re beyond pussy-footing around with the game and tinkering at its edges. They’re willing to try something big and new and radical.
But now. Now we approach the point where the moaning begins. History has taught us that the greatest hurdle new playing rules ever have to cross is always the intercounty managers whose jobs depend on the players trying to implement them.
Limiting handpasses, the black card, the drag-down penalty — all of them were met with a cavalcade of moaning managers early in life. In some cases, it killed the experiment off at birth. In others, it became the soundtrack to years of teething problems.
Self-interest is always at the heart of the moaning. It’s not that the managers were ever all that dogmatic about the merits or otherwise of the new rules themselves. It’s just that they would much rather say rules came in at some undefined time, away in the future. Preferably about five years hence, when they’re coining it on a pundits’ couch. It was therefore easy to dismiss any and all moaning that arose.
With the momentum that has been gathering behind the FRC, it felt like the moaning might be a little less pronounced this time around. For one thing, there aren’t many managers on the circuit who would feel comfortable taking a swipe at Jim Gavin in public. For another, plenty of them know the game is an eyesore and that something has to be done about it.
But there’s a genuine problem on the horizon, brought about only in the past fortnight or so. First, it was the scrapping of the preseason competitions. That was followed a few days ago by an official GAA letter going out to county boards saying that intercounty training can’t begin until December 7th. Good, progressive, player-centred moves. But a huge pain for any manager trying to get a handle on the new rules.
Essentially what the GAA is telling them is that if the FRC proposals get through Special Congress at the end of November, the first time players will experience them for real is the opening day of the league in January. Since the league and championship have become linked, there’s no such thing as sacking off the spring competition any more. These games matter more than ever. A score here and there can dictate the rest of the season.
So for once, the managers can feel perfectly entitled to their grievances. They have a fortnight’s training in December, followed by three weeks in January, with a few challenge matches here and there to get their players used to a whole new way of playing. It will feel like trying to learn Chinese by sticking on Duolingo for the first time on the plane to Beijing.
They will moan about it. They will be right to do so. If that sways the delegates enough to reject the proposals at Special Congress, scrapping the preseason tournaments at such a delicate moment will be an awful ball to have dropped.