In October, the GAA will meet in special congress to deliberate on the final acceptance of the Football Review Committee’s (FRC) “enhanced” rules. When these were being accepted for trialling last November, the process became a procession as all of the FRC proposals were overwhelmingly supported.
It was a measure of how desperate the association had become to remedy the acknowledged ills of the game. This summer’s championship was the best in years, by consensus, greatly improved by the new provisions, which are expected to secure GAA endorsement in little more than a month.
For those at the centre of the project – the administrators and referees – there is relief that it all played out so well and a certain circumspection that even after such a successful introduction, a watching brief will be necessary, as the rules move into club competitions, especially knockout, and in a few months, their second season.
GAA national match officials manager Donal Smyth is positive but cautious.
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“I suppose we haven’t really done a debrief yet, so we’ll be bringing them in now in the next couple of weeks and will sit down and go through the season. But overall, the one rule that’s been really good for us has been the “solo and go”.
“It’s the one thing that has really helped the game and helped the whole discipline side because people have no time any more to get involved in narky stuff and that kind of stuff, so it just kind of moves the game on really quickly. Which has been really positive for me.
“I’d be really interested to see how does the discipline follow through to next year. We are looking at things in a six-month period that has gone well, so it’s on now, to what the second year will look like.”
The solo and go provides for a free to be taken quickly within four metres of its occurrence and for the player taking it not to be challenged for another four metres. It has contributed greatly to better behaviour around the awarding of frees, which under the old rules have been flashpoints.
In recent weeks, the FRC has been trialling further changes, recently covered in The Irish Times, including restrictions on back passes and hand passes, but it is not yet clear which, if any, of these will go to the special congress.
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From Smyth’s perspective, it’s time to bank the gains from the rules that have been successfully applied.
“It would be ideal if there were no additional rules and then, if something’s not working, go and change it at the end of the league or whenever.”
Tyrone referee Seán Hurson is one of the most experienced and highly regarded officials in the game. He took charge of two All-Ireland finals in 2022 and last year.
He echoes Smyth’s point that the solo and go has been transformative. “The awarding of a free was a constant challenge. Players would race 20m to argue the award with the referee, partly to delay the play and partly to put doubt in the ref’s head. That’s all impossible once the ball is back in play.”
Although he had been pessimistic about how the changes would work when the big interprovincial trials took place last October, experience changed Hurson’s view.
“I didn’t think it was going to work as well because there was no intensity in those games, there was no jeopardy. But when there is jeopardy and there is intensity, players still were disciplined.”
He believes this has come about because of the collaborative approach that was taken to the formulation of the changes and their implementation. Change was broken down, sector by sector and a range of seminars, both in person and online, were organised.
It has been remarked on that all big stakeholders, players, managers, referees, and administrators enthusiastically bought into the process.
“We’ve seen changes in the past,” says Hurson, “where there was no consultation with officials and then, rules were maybe not implemented the way that some people thought they should have been implemented.
“But this time, both FRC and the officials seem to be happy, based on our last meeting there a few weeks ago. They also took to heart different recommendations through the season, which was probably a direct result of some of the meetings.
“So, we felt as referees that we were being listened to, and issues that we were having were being addressed.”
Jim Gavin’s committee left no stone unturned in relation to consultation and getting feedback, as the trial proceeded. Hurson acknowledges that “the referee was probably thought about through the whole enhancement [process], about how it could be made easier for the referee and ensure more respect for the referee in implementing these rules”.
As a referee, he wasn’t initially sure about the restriction to the team captain, on players’ right of audience with a referee. Any other verbal contact would be penalised by a 50m advancement of the free.
“A big part of my refereeing ‘game management’ is to communicate with players, and I felt that rule would be a detriment to my style of refereeing if I wasn’t able to do that any more.
“That concerned me at the start, but we sought clarification from Jim Gavin and his team. They felt that communication was still okay. We all know the difference between somebody challenging your authority and someone with a genuine query.”
There are concerns that with the focus moving to club activity and county championships that the burden on referees without the comparative luxury of a six-strong crew of independent officials may struggle to implement the new rules in pressurised situations.
“Whatever the rules, there will be mistakes,” according to Smyth. “Education has been ongoing with club referees and there have been the Give Respect, Get Respect campaign and then, the RefWell online performance psychology and mental health training programme, launched this summer.”
He also reports that referee recruitment is well on target to meet last year’s figure of 600. There had been concerns that with all the focus on an expanding burden of new rules, new recruits would be put off.
“The danger would have been that numbers would drop because referees were being asked to do too much but the positive coverage of the rules’ effect on indiscipline has helped to counterbalance that.”
According to Hurson, the game is now more enjoyable both to play and referee. In a club context, he advises any official on their own just to focus on what’s in front of and not to be agonising over 4v3 breaches behind the play.
“He’s the only neutral official. The 4v3 is a huge challenge, but I think from a referee’s point of view, we have all the rules to implement, not just the new rules.
“Therefore, we do miss double hops, we miss touching the ground. That’s just human. You’re going to miss some things and if you miss a 4v3, so be it but if you miss a red card, that’s more serious.”
Smyth says that the success of this year’s championship owes a great deal to all the stakeholders who made it work but singles out the officials, thrown into a new and little understood world last January, who kept the show on the road.
“Real kudos to the referees and the officials but also to players and managers and teams and they bought into it as well. You would have to be reticent about saying that it’s all solved, but it has started well.”
