Malachy Clerkin: The new Gaelic football rules are fun but they need cynical teams to stress test them

Let the records show that the first four-point goal ever scored was by Aidan O’Shea. And that the first two-pointer ever kicked was by Jack Carney. And if you want to make your little jokes about Mayo players shining when there’s nothing at stake, go right ahead. But you’ll be wrong.
Because there was – and is – a lot at stake in Croke Park this weekend. How about the future of Gaelic football? Is that enough for you? And if that’s maybe laying it on a bit too thick, how about just the basic idea of taking a big swing? As much as anything, that felt like it was at stake here.
However it all shakes out eventually, there was something thrilling about being present to watch a sport take a serious look at itself. To see Gaelic football, raddled and battered by the years, decide to draw a line in the sand for itself. If nothing else, at least they’re trying something.
First impressions? As the late Sven-Goran Eriksson might put it, some things good, some things not so good.
Take the scoring system, which probably covers both ends of the spectrum. The four points for a goal meant that O’Shea’s strike in the second minute of the first game knocked the stuffing out of Leinster before they’d really settled into their surroundings. Connacht put on a huge press and strangled Stephen Cluxton’s kick-outs, resulting in them going 1-9 to 0-0 ahead after just 12 minutes.
Now, in old money, that scoreline would have been 1-7 to 0-0, as in 10 points to zero. But because of O’Shea’s goal being worth four points and long-range efforts from Carney and Diarmuid Murtagh being worth two apiece, Connacht were 13-0 up before a quarter of the game had elapsed.
In reality, the game was done and dusted either way. But it was a stark example of how things can get away from a team that doesn’t hit the pitch of it early. If you’re four points down inside two minutes and you can’t get a kickout away, heads won’t be long dropping.
Is that good? Is it bad? One night of football can’t be expected to tell us anything definitive. Particularly a night like this when, with all due nods of the head to the dear old Railway Cup, nothing was do-or-die.
After Connacht waltzed away with the first game, we asked Pádraic Joyce what would be different if a league or championship game was on the line.
“There’ll probably be a bit more jeopardy anyway. It wouldn’t be as attack-minded probably. There’ll probably be a bit more of players coming back around the pitch – let’s say over and back the attack 45 and back to your own 45.
“As well as that, teams aren’t going to make it three v three. Teams are going to keep a plus-one back regardless, come championship. They’re not going to leave three on three because it’s dangerous. If you break the ball down and you’re left three on three on the far side of the pitch against teams with unbelievably good forwards. You’ll need a plus-one.”
That was the big imponderable here. The rule changes are all fine and dandy and the players all seemed to have a right old time playing the game. But for all the FRC’s detailed and diligent work, the one thing they couldn’t do was make these games feel like more than what they are.
This was exhibition stuff and the players behaved as such. They were taking on shots from distance, stroking them over at will. Or if they weren’t, they were shrugging their shoulders when the ball dropped short or skewed wide. Nobody’s day was going to be ruined by a languid attempt that didn’t quite hit its mark.
But more than that, everyone was on their best behaviour. A game with no consequences means a game with no cynicism. As Roscommon’s Enda Smith conceded after the opening encounter, it’s going to feel a lot different in February with two league points on the line and the crowd baying and everyone scratching and clawing for every last breaking ball.
“I think probably the interpretation of the tap-and-go probably is one,” Smith said when we asked which rules would feel different on a day that truly mattered.
“Obviously we didn’t see many, if any, tonight. I think that when it’s a high stakes game and there’s a point either way and you get caught on your 45 – like, what’s the definition of stopping up to play? Or even giving guff to the ref.
“I think that’ll be the biggest grey area that the [FRC] lads maybe have to just fact check. It wasn’t overused tonight but when it comes to it, the interpretation of that will be huge. When can you engage with a man? When do you have to step off him?
“That’s a big one and that’s pressure on refs. Because in a high stakes game it’s a massive switch, when you’re going for National League points or a championship match. That’s massive. I think it’s going to be the biggest one, in terms of how we fine-tune that and get it right.”
Jim Gavin and his band of merry men are no fools. They know a weekend like this isn’t going to be the white glove test the rules need. This is a means to an end – they need to put these rules in front of people to get the first step across the line. These rules have to get through Central Council first and Special Congress second, all in the space of the next six weeks.
The true trial period is the 2025 season, when week after week of trial and error at club and county level will – they hope – see the rule changes properly stress-tested. Maybe it ends up that the kickout rule and the three-players-up are enough by themselves.
Maybe the dissent and game-delay rules that several frees being brought forward by 50 metres will be the most crucial changes of all. We don’t know yet and neither do they.
What we do know is that lines in the sand get washed away over time. But this was a start. It wasn’t cut-throat and it was neither blood nor thunder but it was a start. It looked and felt like Gaelic football, albeit without the spice.
When they add a bit of honest-to-goodness cynicism to it, then we’ll get a sense of what the possibilities truly are.