Reform effort not quite up to the mark

SIDELINE CUT: Gaelic football is flawed but at its best it is exciting. The proposed introduction of the mark could rob it of that in one fell stroke

FEW THINGS on this earth worry the Gael more than the threatened disappearance of The High Catch. All that is good and bad in Gaelic football is to be found in the worshipful attitude towards the Catch and the raging debate about its imminent extermination.

You may or may not have heard that the Gaels tasked with forever tinkering and adapting the rules of the game have proposed introducing a GAA version of the Australian “mark” in the coming season. The idea is to reward the player for making a successful – and, ideally, an aesthetically pleasing – high catch by giving him time to come to ground, modestly soak up the applause spreading around the ground, survey the field like a general and then pick out a team-mate with a free pass which the radiomen will describe as “probing” in the hope that his colleague, too, can soar majestically into the air and claim the ball in equally spectacular fashion.

The theory is sound enough. But in practice, the GAA mark will be an unmitigated disaster. The Gael has not thought this through. As ever, his heart is in the right place. Behind the pin-striped sobriety and solid language of any administrative Gael lurks the heart of and out- and-out romantic. It is probably true that all Gaels of a certain age wish it could be 1976 forever, when music was played with guitars, hairstyles were laissez faire and the high catch was one of the untouchable glories of the nation. No sight could make Gaels go weak at the knees like that of a long-haired Mullins or a tanned O’Shea rising through the early autumn sky over Croke Park, timing their leap so that they could claim the ball at the apex of its flight, leaving mere mortals in their wake as they met the ground at full pace. Gaels had a great name for it. They called it The Fetch.

The fetch was a perfect union of athleticism, art and the kind of clean, uncomplicated manliness that the Gael has traditionally championed if not downright fetishised.

Great exponents of the fetch were afforded a unique place in the pantheon of GAA heroism. Men that had seen them drank deep and were silent. All sins could be forgiven a fellow who was born with the ability to rise above the panting masses and fly, fly, for that deathless, 0.3 of a second that enabled him to bring the orb of pigskin close to his chest and descend to earth again. It did not really matter what they did with the football once gravity reined them in. It was of no concern to the masses that the hero, practically stoned with the rush of blood that accompanied their spectacular fetch, would instantly balloon the ball hopelessly wide trying to land a point for the ages from 50 metres. That he had a habit of hand-passing the ball to opposition players was not important either. The moment – the aesthetic – was everything.

The fetch was a victory in itself. Great catchers of the football made light of their gift. It wasn’t something that they spoke about. They knew that they possessed one of the more mysterious GAA skills, not as obvious or as intrinsically valuable as the ability to hammer over points from acute angles but cherished just as much. Catchers tended to be tallish fellows but not giants. More often than not, they would be broad-shouldered and handsome in a straightforward, Tom Selleck type of way. Search through the glove compartments of their cars and it wouldn’t be long before you came across a Rod Stewart cassette. They liked a good time and returned from a winter’s hibernation in the tavern carrying a few pounds, which they would effortlessly loose once they began rocketing towards falling footballs in training.

They may not always – or ever – have worn denim shirts, but they had something of the frontiersman about them. They went where few other Gaels ever did – that is, slightly more than half a foot off the ground. The man who could fetch held a special place in Gaelic lore. He was not the front man but he was the lead guitarist, the guy whose sudden, unexpected turn could leave the crowd breathless at what they had just witnessed.

In day-to-day life, they were ordinary men – teachers, gardaí, bank officials, farmers: the usual GAA occupations. In workday suits or at the pub, they were beefy-looking types but their form and tone would be transformed whenever they set about making a fetch. Executed correctly and witnessed in a certain light, a burly, stout-drinking midfielder in his late thirties could take on the grace and beauty of Nureyev.

Through the 1980s and 1990s, men like Willie Joe Padden and Anthony Tohill kept the tradition alive. Virtually every county had a specialist. A Mayo man told me once – and not entirely approvingly – that McHale could fetch ’em with one hand. But keen students noticed that the fetch was becoming a rarity. In the past decade, it all but died out. It was like the corncrake of Gaelic football. Only a handful of football men kept it alive, but too often they found that their fetches were spoilt by what are disparagingly referred to as “tactics”.

Modern fetchers rose for the clouds only to find marauders awaiting them when they landed, ganging up and mugging them in a manner that was entirely legal. It was indicative of a new trend emergent in Gaelic football, which included pesky modifications such as organised defence and intelligent tackling. It became clear that the fetch had become endangered.

The solution has been to incorporate the mark. Bringing in one of the emblematic features of a foreign sport betrays a disappointing lack of faith in Gaelic football itself. The game is beset with many rules difficulties – particularly in basic matters like overcarrying the ball, stealing ground when taking frees and the problematic interpretation of what does and does not constitute a legal tackle. In many ways, it is a wonderfully lawless sport. The decision to allow players to take frees from the hands essentially saved Gaelic football.

The old scenario, where a fouled player had to place the ball on the ground, take his steps and go through the motions seems incredibly ponderous in comparison with the helter-skelter speed of the contemporary game. Gaelic football is flawed, but at its best it is exciting. The mark could rob it of that in one fell stroke. Bring the mark into Gaelic football and it ceases to be Gaelic football.

The entire thinking behind the game will change: instead of the swift and sometimes mad progress up field, teams will begin to plot their way forward through a series of carefully crafted kick-and-catch advances, bringing a stop-start feel to the game that will be more reminiscent of gridiron football than anything else. It is understandable that Gaels are pining for those freewheeling heroes of their youth. In complicated times, what better than the straightforward marvel of the number eight gliding above the crowd, giving an exhibition of football as it was and always should be. It is only natural they would want to preserve that skill. But the mark is not the answer. The fetch is an important part of the game. But it is not more important than the game itself.