Bright new dawn as spectre of black card strikes fear in defenders

The league season has started at one hundred miles an hour. In Croke Park, All-Ireland champions Dublin carried their mantra that goals wins games as they took their bow under the theatre lights, putting two past Kerry and duly winning.

Up in Ulster, Tyrone and Derry produced three goals between them in a fast, high-scoring game which finished in a gripping draw 1-15 to 2-12 draw. That set the mood for Sunday’s fare. By late afternoon, the radio bulletins were fizzing with eye-catching full-time scores, a world away from the drowsy fare normally associated with the early days of the league.

Donegal registered 2-19 in coasting past Laois. In Division four, Tipperary put 2-24 past Carlow. Wickow notched up 3-13 against Connacht finalists London. Newbridge hosted an out-an-out duel between Kildare and Mayo which finished 2-19 to 2-18 in favour of the home team.

Down in Navan in the Division Two tie of the day, the scoring was off the charts: Galway fired 4-18 and still lost against a Meath team whose final tally of 3-18 came from play. In addition, the Meath men created enough chances to register 16 wides.

What was going on?

The obvious conclusion was that the spectre of the black card served to strike the fear of God into defenders across the country. Although James Horan, the Mayo manager, was pleased with the performance of his team he made the point that defenders are afraid to defend under the current officiating rules. And the burst of nationwide scoring suggested forwards everywhere had sensed that uncertainty and were taking full advantage.

Highest score
In Wicklow, Leighton Glynn registered the highest score of the weekend, hitting 3-3. Afterwards, the respective managers agreed it was a bit unusual. "Players are certainly adjusting . . . it is new and they don't really know where they stand," says Wicklow's Harry Murphy "You can see players are inclined not to be tackling. Our game was good and tight but I felt the intensity was lacking a small bit and the players were that bit worried. You don't know how a referee is going to handle it. Black cards can be produced whereas before you might have felt you'd get away with one or two things because he didn't want to send a player off early.

“The black card will probably take the pressure off referees in that way – he knows the team won’t suffer if he issues a black card. I was talking to Paul Goggins afterwards and he said they gave us a lot more room than what they generally did. They haven’t been beaten like that for a couple of years. But I think that was more down to Leighton than anything.”

It is true that even in the cut and thrust of championship games, Glynn is capable of going supernova. On Sunday, that was clear benefit to Wicklow. But it also highlights the problem if someone like Glynn commits a black-card foul.

“Yeah, Leighton is difficult to mark at the best of times,” Murphy says. “There were four black cards in our game and neither team really suffered. If we lose the likes of Leighton or if a top team loses one of their best players later in the year, it will have a big repercussion. Still, it is making for high-scoring games. London opened us up as well a few times and you could see our defenders at the same mindset. We lost Paul Ellis to a very simple one. On Saturday night, I thought the Tyrone chap who got the line was a bit unlucky. Everyone is trying to find their feet.”

On the surface, the proliferation of scores is a cause for celebration and indicates the black-card system is working as intended. Eliminating cynical play had become a primary ambition of those involved in recommending the changes. The old attitude of getting away with it should no longer apply under the new rules.

McStay evaluation
Working with RTÉ for the Kildare-Mayo game last Sunday, Kevin McStay was pleased by the free-flowing , end-to-end spectacle that unfolded. He understands the reservations but feels what is happening represents the first real attempt to whistle games to the letter of the law. "The thing to remember in this is that fouling in the tackle won't earn you a black card. It is for the pull down or the deliberate trip.

“In my mind, what we called ‘hard tackling’ was actually fouling- tackling with the closed fist or leaning in with hip or . . . all that became acceptable for the past 70 years under the euphemism that it is ‘a man’s game’. The tackling going on now is the tackling the law prescribes. But we are coming to the party late. Our culture has always been, ‘ah sure you can clatter into a lad and drive him out of it and it is all part of it.’ But in fact, it is not part of it.”

The biggest consequence, as McStay sees it, will be the elimination of players being checked from following up for a return ball after they give a pass. “You could see in the past few years that wing backs and half forwards just didn’t bother making those runs because they knew they would get checked.”

In coaching St Brigid’s to the All-Ireland club championship last year, McStay was well versed in just how far a defence could test the patience of a referee. St Brigid’s played terrific, attacking football and were rewarded for that. They worked ferociously on the give-and-go but McStay admits players were also coached to hand check their opponents. “Not to clatter into them but just a quick hand on the chest to break the momentum of a player so he wouldn’t be coming onto the ball at one hundred miles an hour,” he explains. “It was always on the edge of what was allowed. That will go now because it is so obvious that officials will spot it all the time. It is like the up-and-under with the rugby. Years ago guys cut across the line of the kicker as he followed up but now referees are pinning that straight away.”

Defenders may be paranoid but the peculiar aspect of the Galway-Meath scoring spree was that the only player to be shown a black card was Galway’s Seán Armstrong, an out-and-out scorer who had bagged 1-2 before getting caught out in the 46th minute. It is not often that a team scores 4-11 and loses and that Armstrong was the only player to fall foul of the law only added to the unusual pattern of the game. “And we missed a penalty,” points outs Alan Mulholland, the Galway manager, who reckons the nature of their game was partly down to the black-card influence and partly because league games can occasionally flare unexpectedly.

“For one thing, the Navan pitch was in fantastic nick. And then you had two teams committing to attack. But definitely the black card did come into it and I spoke to one or two players and they are saying it is in their head. I am not sure that the rule is as draconian as the behaviour it is producing in the players. They are possibly over compensating and that will level out.”

This weekend may bring a return to more sobering scorelines. But the free-scoring nature of last weekend did raise the question of precisely what people want from Gaelic football. The big complaint about defensively-weighted systems is that games are boring to watch because there weren’t enough scores. But if last weekend was a glimpse into the future, then it may have illuminated the fact the opposite is also true.

There is nothing too exciting about watching scores in games when they are clearly achieved very easily. The brilliance or importance of a score is often directly related to the difficulties presented to the attacker who attempts it and what he does to evade the defenders around him.

Even as he enjoyed the score-taking in Newbridge – and there were a few breathtaking points kicked – McStay found himself noting and missing the legitimately heavy and intense tackles. It could be argued the deluge of scores across the country demonstrated the point Mickey Harte has been making – to no avail – for years: a low-scoring Gaelic football match can be low scoring but still be a terrific match.

Patterns
There were other patterns detectable too over the first weekend. The Meath-Galway game made Mulholland think the black-card rules might inadvertently encourage more teams to adapt a running game.

“I think it is going to lead to even greater fitness demands on the players. I can see it. When runners come at you, you can’t stop them. So more teams will run: you are going to have to get back and legitimately and they are going to need support.”

Certainly in Newbridge, gaps appeared in both teams defences. They were nothing to panic about in February but could have disastrous consequences in the championship. If high-scoring games become the pattern, then it could be argued the new rules have altered the dynamic of the game to extent that it becomes a different game – a run-and-gun free for all with the emphasis on scoring and scoring big. It remains to be seen if that would be a positive development. As Harry Murphy says, “you don’t want scores to go like hurling matches.”

Murphy was mildly concerned with the way London opened his team up in scoring 1-11. Likewise, Mulholland was candid about the fact Galway defended poorly in Navan. In his after-match comments, he noted a lot of teams were probably conscious of what Dublin did last year through all out attack. McStay believes that also accounts for what was a high-scoring opening weekend.

“Twelve months ago all the coaches were focused on the Donegal template, beefing up defences and bringing forwards back. Now, the emphasis is on Dublin – all out attack and total football or whatever you like to call it. There is no doubt all new coaches look at what was successful the previous season. It would be remiss of any coach to ignore defence because you can’t have any platform without it.

“So maybe that combined with the black card, encouraged teams to go for it. I think we will see defences stiffening up this weekend. And for the good tackling teams – Dublin, Mayo, Donegal, Kildare were excellent the other day – it can have its benefits.”