Hurling group not 'steamrolled'

Gaelic Games News: The hurling rules task force was in no way steamrolled by the preferences of its football counterpart, according to the GAA's head of games Pat Daly. As the rumblings continue over the way the experimental rules are being enforced in hurling, Daly also called for the establishment of a committee to deal exclusively with rule changes.

Sunday's opening round of the hurling league brought fresh criticism of the new yellow card rule, and certain members of the hurling task force agreed with that criticism in the aftermath.

Tipperary hurler Eoin Kelly and former Wexford hurler George O'Connor, both members of the task force, revealed they had never agreed to the situation where players are sent off for a yellow card and replaced by a substitute, but had agreed only to the original experiment where yellow-carded players were to be sin-binned for 10 minutes.

Daly acted as secretary to both task forces, and explained exactly why the revised experiment was inflicted upon both codes. Central Council had, in fact, carefully weighed up both options, and after a narrow vote of 19-14 decided to go with the revised format put forward by the football task force.

"It would be easy to give the impression that the hurling task force was steamrolled," said Daly.

"But it wasn't. The experiments as originally agreed were all signed, sealed and delivered by both task forces, and they included the sin bin.

"The only substantive change then arose from the meeting of the football task force on January 17th. They decided the player that was yellow-carded should be replaced, as distinct from sin-binned. That was discussed with the chairman of the task force, Nicky Brennan, so in trying to keep people in the loop we certainly did our best.

"You then had the scenario where ultimately it was Central Council who faced the decision on January 29th. Both options were discussed, and it wasn't as cut and dry as some people are suggesting. It had to be one or the other, and had three votes gone the other way then the original option would now be what we're experimenting with."

Daly agreed, however, that both the timeframe and very nature of the experiments were always likely to cause some problems.

"My job was to ensure both options went to Central Council, and that's what happened. I can see why some people would say there could have more consultation, but at the speed at which things were happening and the time constraints we were under it just wasn't feasible.

"The football revisions were announced on the Monday, and Central Council were meeting that Saturday. I'm not saying it was perfect, but we did things to the best of our ability under the circumstances.

"I don't think it would have been realistic at that stage to go back and draw up a number of different options.

"And in fairness to George O'Connor and Eoin Kelly and everybody else, there was no juncture at which the options they proposed were just discarded. The two options were clearly put to Central Council. There was one view that the neither option should be supported, but in the end they decided to vote for one or the other. Anybody who didn't know what was happening at that stage wasn't really tuned in to what was going on."

In the meantime, though, Daly has made clear his dissatisfaction with certain elements of the entire process, and called for the establishment of a standing rules revision committee, an idea which had, in fact, been originally proposed as part of the Strategic Review.

"It's important enough and big enough to warrant that committee. Given the complexities of these issues I don't think we should have been dealing with them in this way. There are a number of complexities involved, from the players' perspective, to team managers and administrators and referees.

"They're all key stakeholders in the game, and you want to get all parties contributing to the decision-making process.

"So you need a committee that deals exclusively and specifically with this area, and oversees all areas of research that engages in the consultative process with any of the stakeholders. That would at least ensure the whole thing is done is a manner that wouldn't leave us open to some of the criticisms that are currently being levelled at us."

While Central Council will meet again on March 12th, it remains to be seen if popular opinion can yet force another rethink on the experimental rules, but for now Daly is content to let the whole thing take its course. "Other experiments have had similar misgivings," he said, "so let's at least conclude the experimentation and decide at Congress what way to go."