TYRONE MANAGER Mickey Harte has criticised the latest set of experimental rules which will be trialled in the National Football League next year. The All-Ireland winning coach feels the introduction of the mark could rob Gaelic football of the speed and fluidity that make it such a spectacle.
“I certainly have no time for this mark suggestion,” he said. “I think it will ruin our game, make it a stop-start game, and I have absolutely no time for that at all.”
Harte insisted the game in its current form is a prime product, and should not be tampered with. But a set of proposals from the GAA’s Football Rules Committee, headed by another Tyrone man, Séamus Woods, has produced a new set of regulations which will be in force during the 2010 NFL, including changes to the square-ball rule, a redefining of the bounce, and alterations to distances for penalty kicks and kick-outs.
“I think there are too many changes being foisted upon us. Why do we need these changes all the while? Why is there all this ongoing experimentation, when there’s nothing wrong with the games that we play?”
Harte added: “It’s just change for change sake, experimentation for experimentation’s sake.
“I fail to understand why an organisation that has quality products is forever looking about, changing them. Why not accept that these are quality products that we have, and let’s just go on and make them better as games to look at, and if it means coaching and teaching people who play it, and people who watch it, the finer arts of what these rules are about, by all means.”
The Tyrone boss was more amenable to the Gaelic Players Association becoming an official part of the GAA at Congress in April.
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