Football Review Committee Survey

[llkj]

Has anyone else filled in the football review survey? I did so just now, and have to say that it is the worst piece of shite I have ever filled in. there is absolutely no scientific research method used to it, and I could already tell you what the results of the survey are going to be. It is clear that they have an agenda and now they are going to use their 'loaded' survey to tell the word that the changes they have suggested are giving the people what they wanted.

I guarantee their suggestions will include:
- less hand passing
- a mark
- more frees off ground.

Surprise surprise, these are little pet projects of Eugene's.

Here is the survey: http://www.frc.ie/survey fill it in and let us know what you think.

[kinnittyman]

Ya I filled it in and I sent them an email on a few details aswell. Here's what I proposed for new football championship structure:

While I do enjoy the Provincial Championships and I feel they give a tangible aim for most counties at the start of the year (not every team can aim to win the All-Ireland whereas a Provincial Championship may a realistic aim) it seems that change to the championship structure will happen at some stage so I would like to propose the following structure.

The Championship would consist of 32 teams. The 31 counties (no Kilkenny) and New York/London. They would have to play off to see who would be in the Championship proper.

There would be 8 groups with four teams in each group. Each group would have a seed 1, seed 2, seed 3 and seed 4. For the first year seed 1's would come from Division 1 of the NFL, seed 2's from Division 2 etc. After year 1 where you finish in your four team group decides what seed you are for the following year.

Each team plays the other teams in their group so every county is guaranteed 3 championship games.

The top 2 teams qualify for the last sixteen where group winners are placed into one pot and drawn against group runners up with group winners having home advantage (This gives the group winners an extra reward for winning their group).

Quarter Finals and Semi Finals are then an open draw with all those games played in Croke Park.

Advantages:
Every team gets three meaningful championship games.
Where you finish in a particlular year has a direct bearing on the following year so all games are of consequence.
The Championship takes 7 weekends to run off so everything could be streamlined to allow for this e.g start championship on June bank holiday and have All-Ireland Final on last weekend in August. That's 13 weeks for championship which obviously is much better than the current 20 weeks and frees up time for club activity which we must remember is the home of the vast majority of Gaelic players.

[DAF]

My structure would be to get rid of the league.Start the championship in late April/Early May.Football is a summer game there should be no intercounty football before April and after September.

Have 4 conferences with 8 teams in each play 7 matches.The league of the year before is used to set the seedings for each conference (2 teams from each division).The 4 lowest seeds get the extra home match to balance things out .1 match every second week.On the weeks a county has off club games are played.This means clubs know when matches will be played and these fixtures set for the group stage of the championship are not to be changed.3 teams from each group qualify for the knockout stages.The top teams straight into the conference final and the other 2 play off to see who would meet them in the conference final.The regular season would be finished by the end of July and the knockout matches would played in August and September.

This would sort out the club fixtures issue.Get both club and county season started later in the year(who the fuck really wants to be playing football in Jan,Feb and March and not playing in the summer which happens too much).Make it easier for the GAA to promote the game, provide each county with at least 3 important championship home matches which could be easily promoted.Put much more emphasis on the All Ireland club championship as the GAA's winter competition and this could be promoted better like it is the GAA's version of the European Cup.We would get the vast majority of intercounty football matches played in the summer which is not the case at the moment despite football supposedly being a summer sport.

the survey was not good it was clearly hinting what the wanted you to vote for and also i went into a big description of what I wanted to change in the comments section at the end hit enter and it brought me back to a previous question which I had not answered and deleted what I had written in the comments section.I gave up out of frustration.

[DAF]

I sent this to Eugene McGee as my rule change suggestions when he looked for them in his column in the indo earlier in the year.By the way I dont think there is a huge amount wrong with the game.I have really enjoyed this years championship but a few tweaks would make it more entertaining.

The biggest whinge by people in relation to the game is that handpassing is ruining it. In my opinion that is nonsense, when handpassing is done properly at pace is it brilliant to watch and most goals are scored as a result of a handpassing moves.Suggestions to limit handpassing would make it much easier for teams to defend as if handpasing was restricted to no more than 2/3 consecutive handpasses It would be extremely easy to defend against and you would end up with a terrible game consisting of hopeful punts forward.Just think about it.Say only 2 handpasses in succession are allowed you could easily put banks of men behind the ball (donegal style) and get a couple of forwards to track the ball carriers (probably from the half back line) until they progress up to midfield have used up their handpassess and are forced to kick into an attack which is being covered by over 10 defenders.
Look at the Dublin Donegal match last year, Dublin played a more traditional kicking game in the first half and it was fairly easily dealt with by Donegal.They won the game in the second half by bringing on Kevin McManamon and running straight at Donegal with good handpassing movements and drawing fouls and a couple of openings.I believe 6 rule changes would cure all of the issues in football at the moment

1. 13 a side:
Due to increased fitness levels space can be closed down easily compared to the past and there is so little space for forwards these days and reducing the number of players on the field would mean more space for forwards and thus more scores and entertaining play .It would indirectly increase the amount of kicked passes as with less players it would take more energy to run the ball all day and thus the value of continuously handpassing the ball would be negated.You only have to look at the numbr of games where a player being sent off has reulted in a more entertaining contest to see that this rule change is a no brainer.Also it woudl reduce intercounty panels by about 4 and thus mean money would be saved across the board.With increased emigration some clubs (in rural areas in particular) struggle to field a 15 a side team 13 a side football would help solve this issue aswell. My only worry with this rule is that the first thing some coaches would do would be to increase fitness training and take even time away from skills training

2. Restrict the number of players in defensive half of the field:
Introduce a rule that says at least 4 of the 13 players must be within 65 yards of the goal a team is attacking.This cuts out the blanket defence and would result in more man to man contest instead of zonal defending which we have alot of now.You could make a tweak and allow one of these 4 to enter the defensive half in order to collect a pass as to act as an outball for an under pressure defence as we dont want to see half forwards standing with their hands on their hips unable to move when they could make themselves available to take a pass.

3. The Mark:
Allow a mark to be taken between both 45s from a kickout (similar to the league a couple of years ago) the tweak I would make is that once a mark is take the ball must be kicked forward at least 20 yards.This would result in more direct football and encourage more emphasis on fielding.

4. Passback Rule:
I am sick of defenders passing the ball back to the goalie.It annoys the hell out of most fans and a simple way to deal with it would be to simply ban it like was done in soccer about 20 years ago.It would also result in more kicked clearance from defence as too often defendersuse the goalie as an out ball when the try to run out of defence and realise they cant do it so the ball is recycled back and worth between defender and goalkeeper.

5. Freekicks:
I think a rule should be brought in like in basketball where the player who is fouled is the only person allowed to take a free kick.This will stop forwards deliberately looking for frees as they may not want to con the ref and throw themselves to the ground if they know the pressure of kicking the score will be on them.Also it would improve kicking all round as all players would realise they would not be able to rely on just one man to kick all the free and they would have to start improving their own kicking which would benefit the game as a whole

6. Sin Bin:
There is too much cynical fouling in the game.A yellow card for a cynical foul meand ten minutes in the sinbin with no sub to replace the player this would reduce cynical fouling drastically like it did when it was brought in for the lage a few years ago.Obviously refereeing standards would have to improve as most refs dont seem to realise when a player is making a proper attempt to win the ball or making a fair shoulder charge.

[SearingDrive]

My suggestions were:

Restrict the handpass.

Allow the pick up from the ground.

Teams to be 13 a side.

Restructure the championship to say 32 teams. The present structure based on the provincial system, based on the number of counties, means some teams start their campaign much later than others.

Based on comments, I would also scrap the subsidiary competitions, O'Byrne Cup, Mc Kenna Cup, etc, and start the league in October/ November.
I didn't send in this!!

[Daleamar]

Ya I filled it in and I sent them an email on a few details aswell. Here's what I proposed for new football championship structure:

While I do enjoy the Provincial Championships and I feel they give a tangible aim for most counties at the start of the year (not every team can aim to win the All-Ireland whereas a Provincial Championship may a realistic aim) it seems that change to the championship structure will happen at some stage so I would like to propose the following structure.

The Championship would consist of 32 teams. The 31 counties (no Kilkenny) and New York/London. They would have to play off to see who would be in the Championship proper.

There would be 8 groups with four teams in each group. Each group would have a seed 1, seed 2, seed 3 and seed 4. For the first year seed 1's would come from Division 1 of the NFL, seed 2's from Division 2 etc. After year 1 where you finish in your four team group decides what seed you are for the following year.

Each team plays the other teams in their group so every county is guaranteed 3 championship games.

The top 2 teams qualify for the last sixteen where group winners are placed into one pot and drawn against group runners up with group winners having home advantage (This gives the group winners an extra reward for winning their group).

Quarter Finals and Semi Finals are then an open draw with all those games played in Croke Park.

Advantages:
Every team gets three meaningful championship games.
Where you finish in a particlular year has a direct bearing on the following year so all games are of consequence.
The Championship takes 7 weekends to run off so everything could be streamlined to allow for this e.g start championship on June bank holiday and have All-Ireland Final on last weekend in August. That's 13 weeks for championship which obviously is much better than the current 20 weeks and frees up time for club activity which we must remember is the home of the vast majority of Gaelic players.

Not too many traditionalists commenting here.

This format is pretty much like a soccer world cup. ...... What about replays if teams are still level after extra time? To penalties then?

"The championship takes 7 weeks to run off".... Its the spectacle of the sport and your suggestion is to run it off in 7 weeks. How is that an improved format? Plus its an amateur sport. Its all well and good to say play it off in 7 weeks but where is the recovery time? Soccer players in general get a week, world class physios, dpoctors etc. Offaly get 1 quack to keep guys going who have regular hard working job (well the majority would). Soccer teams bring a 24 man squad to the wworld cups. So Gaa teams would bring 32? Thats an increase in the size of a panel and cost.

And what happens to hurling then? Do we play off one before the other?

[Daleamar]

My structure would be to get rid of the league.Start the championship in late April/Early May.Football is a summer game there should be no intercounty football before April and after September.

Have 4 conferences with 8 teams in each play 7 matches.The league of the year before is used to set the seedings for each conference (2 teams from each division).The 4 lowest seeds get the extra home match to balance things out .1 match every second week.On the weeks a county has off club games are played.This means clubs know when matches will be played and these fixtures set for the group stage of the championship are not to be changed.3 teams from each group qualify for the knockout stages.The top teams straight into the conference final and the other 2 play off to see who would meet them in the conference final.The regular season would be finished by the end of July and the knockout matches would played in August and September.

This would sort out the club fixtures issue.Get both club and county season started later in the year(who the fuck really wants to be playing football in Jan,Feb and March and not playing in the summer which happens too much).Make it easier for the GAA to promote the game, provide each county with at least 3 important championship home matches which could be easily promoted.Put much more emphasis on the All Ireland club championship as the GAA's winter competition and this could be promoted better like it is the GAA's version of the European Cup.We would get the vast majority of intercounty football matches played in the summer which is not the case at the moment despite football supposedly being a summer sport.

the survey was not good it was clearly hinting what the wanted you to vote for and also i went into a big description of what I wanted to change in the comments section at the end hit enter and it brought me back to a previous question which I had not answered and deleted what I had written in the comments section.I gave up out of frustration.

Get rid of the league? Isnt that where you blood the youth?

How does this sort out the club fixtures issue? You play intercounty football one week? Club football the next week?...... Thats fair enough, but where does hurling fit in? Just put club hurling on when intercounty football is being played? So remove every dual player from the game?.... Or just have 4 weeks of games? So it take 7 months to play & rounds of a league based championship?

[Daleamar]

I sent this to Eugene McGee as my rule change suggestions when he looked for them in his column in the indo earlier in the year.By the way I dont think there is a huge amount wrong with the game.I have really enjoyed this years championship but a few tweaks would make it more entertaining.

The biggest whinge by people in relation to the game is that handpassing is ruining it. In my opinion that is nonsense, when handpassing is done properly at pace is it brilliant to watch and most goals are scored as a result of a handpassing moves.Suggestions to limit handpassing would make it much easier for teams to defend as if handpasing was restricted to no more than 2/3 consecutive handpasses It would be extremely easy to defend against and you would end up with a terrible game consisting of hopeful punts forward.Just think about it.Say only 2 handpasses in succession are allowed you could easily put banks of men behind the ball (donegal style) and get a couple of forwards to track the ball carriers (probably from the half back line) until they progress up to midfield have used up their handpassess and are forced to kick into an attack which is being covered by over 10 defenders.
Look at the Dublin Donegal match last year, Dublin played a more traditional kicking game in the first half and it was fairly easily dealt with by Donegal.They won the game in the second half by bringing on Kevin McManamon and running straight at Donegal with good handpassing movements and drawing fouls and a couple of openings.I believe 6 rule changes would cure all of the issues in football at the moment

1. 13 a side:
Due to increased fitness levels space can be closed down easily compared to the past and there is so little space for forwards these days and reducing the number of players on the field would mean more space for forwards and thus more scores and entertaining play .It would indirectly increase the amount of kicked passes as with less players it would take more energy to run the ball all day and thus the value of continuously handpassing the ball would be negated.You only have to look at the numbr of games where a player being sent off has reulted in a more entertaining contest to see that this rule change is a no brainer.Also it woudl reduce intercounty panels by about 4 and thus mean money would be saved across the board.With increased emigration some clubs (in rural areas in particular) struggle to field a 15 a side team 13 a side football would help solve this issue aswell. My only worry with this rule is that the first thing some coaches would do would be to increase fitness training and take even time away from skills training

2. Restrict the number of players in defensive half of the field:
Introduce a rule that says at least 4 of the 13 players must be within 65 yards of the goal a team is attacking.This cuts out the blanket defence and would result in more man to man contest instead of zonal defending which we have alot of now.You could make a tweak and allow one of these 4 to enter the defensive half in order to collect a pass as to act as an outball for an under pressure defence as we dont want to see half forwards standing with their hands on their hips unable to move when they could make themselves available to take a pass.

3. The Mark:
Allow a mark to be taken between both 45s from a kickout (similar to the league a couple of years ago) the tweak I would make is that once a mark is take the ball must be kicked forward at least 20 yards.This would result in more direct football and encourage more emphasis on fielding.

4. Passback Rule:
I am sick of defenders passing the ball back to the goalie.It annoys the hell out of most fans and a simple way to deal with it would be to simply ban it like was done in soccer about 20 years ago.It would also result in more kicked clearance from defence as too often defendersuse the goalie as an out ball when the try to run out of defence and realise they cant do it so the ball is recycled back and worth between defender and goalkeeper.

5. Freekicks:
I think a rule should be brought in like in basketball where the player who is fouled is the only person allowed to take a free kick.This will stop forwards deliberately looking for frees as they may not want to con the ref and throw themselves to the ground if they know the pressure of kicking the score will be on them.Also it would improve kicking all round as all players would realise they would not be able to rely on just one man to kick all the free and they would have to start improving their own kicking which would benefit the game as a whole

6. Sin Bin:
There is too much cynical fouling in the game.A yellow card for a cynical foul meand ten minutes in the sinbin with no sub to replace the player this would reduce cynical fouling drastically like it did when it was brought in for the lage a few years ago.Obviously refereeing standards would have to improve as most refs dont seem to realise when a player is making a proper attempt to win the ball or making a fair shoulder charge.

13 a side, you eluded to that yourself, it would only put more emphasis on fitness..... removing the need of brilliance of a great full forward (teh ability to find space regardless of the number of players around)..... It would also remove the full back form the game. I for one love watching a great full back in action.

Pass back to the keeper..... This only works against a team who plays an extra man in defense.... If you have a free, why should you have to kick it long into a space where your opponent is negatively placing an extra defender (Im a firm believer in keeping the ball with simple passes in your own defense. If you can explain to me hpow this is negaitvely affecting football id like to hear it). Also, I dont know if you have watched soccer since 20 years ago, but they just removed the keeprs abilty to pick up the ball, they actually still pass it back to the keeps a lot!!!!

The mark is a good idea, however, it promotes the use of tall players because they are tall, (Its already a big issue in football without adding to it, and I am not lacking in height).

Freekicks, now that is a good idea in my opionion. However, are we talking these rule changes across the board or just in inter county football? As I think a lot of club games would be very very low scoring affairs in this case. However paired alongside better refereeing and a sin bin rule, maybe like a powerplay in icehockey, where a player gets 5 mins in the bin for a professional foul and the player in the bin can come back in after a score is taken.....

I dont think the standard of refereeing is anywhere near good enough for changes like these. its poor at inter county level, nevermind at county or underage..... in my opionion this all breeds from lack of accountability for referees.....

[Daleamar]

My suggestions were:

Restrict the handpass.

Allow the pick up from the ground.

Teams to be 13 a side.

Restructure the championship to say 32 teams. The present structure based on the provincial system, based on the number of counties, means some teams start their campaign much later than others.

Based on comments, I would also scrap the subsidiary competitions, O'Byrne Cup, Mc Kenna Cup, etc, and start the league in October/ November.
I didn't send in this!!

Restrict the handpass? Again, is this across the board or just inter county?... Is it really a better game to have 2 handpasses and the have to kick, as somebody else eluded to, its easy to defend. What happens in windy conditions? Players will end up running the ball and not passing it at all?.... What happens when bringing it out of defense? 2 handpasses and must kick it? A forwards work would be very easy then?

The pick up off the ground? If players dont have the basic skills to pick the ball of the ground quickly and effectively, how do you expect them to kick pass the ball accurately?

[Daleamar]

I dont mean to be knocking everybodies ideas but if the solutions were so simple as to what is being suggested here I think the changes would have beeen made long ago.

That survey is a joke, i didnt bother after the secound page, how can you decide accurately which skill you prefer? i.e. catching, how do you do anything without catching the ball?

[Bord na Mona man]

I don't mind the handpass. It is fairly democratic - use it badly and you get nowhere.
The aimless hoof tennis of the 70s is way overrated and there are a lot of that generation hogging the airwaves trying to romanticise their era.

I would be more concerned with trying to eliminate the possibility of teams benefitting from tactical foul play. It seems that certain teams employ rotational fouling and zone fouling tactics to stifle the opposition. Often at possession turnover time you have players immediately hauling the man down by the neck to stop a counter attack. Forwards are generally happy to take one yellow card, because the possibly of a 2nd yellow is low.
Maybe give a team the option of a '45 for a yellow card (aggressive foul) offence out the field - that sort of thinking.

The sin-bin is worth trying again. It was surreal how easily it was abandoned in 2005 because of a few managers sounding off.

[Daleamar]

I don't mind the handpass. It is fairly democratic - use it badly and you get nowhere.
The aimless hoof tennis of the 70s is way overrated and there are a lot of that generation hogging the airwaves trying to romanticise their era.

I would be more concerned with trying to eliminate the possibility of teams benefitting from tactical foul play. It seems that certain teams employ rotational fouling and zone fouling tactics to stifle the opposition. Often at possession turnover time you have players immediately hauling the man down by the neck to stop a counter attack. Forwards are generally happy to take one yellow card, because the possibly of a 2nd yellow is low.
Maybe give a team the option of a '45 for a yellow card (aggressive foul) offence out the field - that sort of thinking.

The sin-bin is worth trying again. It was surreal how easily it was abandoned in 2005 because of a few managers sounding off.

45 for a yellow card. Thats thinking outside the box.

The problem when the sin-bin was used in the league was the enforcing of it. it was twinned with the black book and with most referees that meant 3 unintentional fouls that looked worse than they were and you were in the book, and often it took less than that. Also the player sin-bined back then couldnt return to the field, that was another problem.

[Plain of the Herbs]

One of the problems in football is this. Team A, chasing the game have a bit of space and move to attack quickly. Player in possession is dragged down. Free awarded. Player takes the free quickly to a colleague in space. Referee whistles back the play to give a yellow card to the defender. By the time the secretarial work is done, the defending team have 12 men behind the ball. Attack comes to nought.

The foul doesn’t take the threat out of the attack as the free is quickly taken, but the time taken for the referee to speak to the fouler kills all momentum.

My solution is that in an instance such as this, if the free is quickly taken, play goes on and no card is given.

[Lone Shark]

There's no question but that the survey is hugely leading, but I still think it's worth putting in your views. Mine would differ from a lot of the above, but the point is that it's a chance to give the people in charge an idea of what we actually want out of football, instead of the GAA doing their traditional thing and following the lead of the Sunday Game pundits.

For the record I think handpassing is great to watch when done right, but timekeeping is an issue, as is the rotational fouling thing. On a structural level I'd prefer to see the backdoor operate within the provinces, since an Offaly vs Westmeath or Offaly vs Laois backdoor game with Leinster still on the table will always get a bigger crowd than games like Offaly vs Clare, Leitrim or Derry, and I'd like to get the whole thing run off quicker. Play club championships from August onwards, and have the All Irelands done by the middle of that month, possibly even july.

Run the preseason competitions alongside the national league, and play them as "B" competitions. I'd prefer to see a potential county corner forward play well in April against a guy playing for his place on the Kildare county team than watch him run rings around a guy in January who's now two stone above his summer weight.

[Bord na Mona man]

The sin-bin is worth trying again. It was surreal how easily it was abandoned in 2005 because of a few managers sounding off.

The problem when the sin-bin was used in the league was the enforcing of it. it was twinned with the black book and with most referees that meant 3 unintentional fouls that looked worse than they were and you were in the book, and often it took less than that. Also the player sin-bined back then couldnt return to the field, that was another problem.

The initial sin-bin was a good idea. A yellow card meant 10 minutes on the bench.
The watered down version brought in for the league was actually ridiculous. A yellow card and you had to be substituted for the game!

I remember Offaly played Westmeath in the league and in the first few minutes Dessie Dolan was on the ground and pulled at Conor Evans ankle and got a yellow. It was as good as a sending off, because Westmeath's chance of winning became almost zero, over a trivial enough yellow.

If that rule was in place now, at the start of the game, I'd pick 3 squad players and have them assigned to jump onto the 3 best opposition players and start rolling and wrestling on the ground.
Refs would do as refs do - issue yellows to everyone (they never care who started it, or who did most of the wrong). You'd swap on your proper players and the opposition would be without their best players for the remainder of the game.

The mad thing is, a couple of years ago, Liam O'Neill actually wanted to bring this farce of a system back! You couldn't make it up.