2009 SENIOR FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP:IT'S STILL early days but the football championship hasn't exactly got off to a reassuring start - at least from a disciplinary point of view.

Sunday's opening two games in Ulster and Leinster suggest a worrying reversal from the positive trends that developed when the experimental yellow-card rules were in force during the National Leagues, particularly in terms of the number of fouls committed.

The Fermanagh-Down game in Brewster Park produced 58 fouls (33 for Fermanagh, and 25 Down), and also three yellow cards and one red card. In Parnell Park, the Louth-Carlow game produced 54 fouls (23 for Louth, and 31 for Carlow), with five yellow cards and also one red card brandished.

This is significantly higher than the average of 30 to 40 fouls per game seen during the league under the experimental yellow-card rules - and the championship hasn't even heated up yet. Just as worryingly, both games were fairly riddled with sloppy, clumsy and sometimes cynical tackling - which can't be entirely blamed on the poor underfoot conditions.

During the league, the average number of yellow cards produced was just over two per game. The only notable fluctuations were on the weekend of matches on February 15th, where the average was 3.1 per game, and on the weekend of March 29th, the average was 1.25 per game.

The GAA's director of games, Pat Daly, who was part of the committee that drew up the experimental yellow-card rules, was monitoring match statistics throughout the league, and says the foul count on Sunday shows a definite rise on what was the seen under the experimental rules.

"If you take the Fermanagh-Down game, with 58 fouls than that's definitely a high free count, by any standards," says Daly, "In the league, under the experimental rules, we would have been running at between 30 and 40 fouls. Even less in some games, and maybe some more in others. But the average would have been around 30 to 35.

"I know conditions were bad, and worse in Parnell Park. But at the same time the playing conditions during the National League were often bad as well. I remember the Donegal-Dublin game was played in a gale and monsoon, and they were still able to play a decent brand of football."

Such a scenario hasn't been without warning. In one of his last acts as GAA president, Nickey Brennan declared that "a decision to reject these proposals won't be good for the association" and "I think that will be proven during the summer if they are rejected at Congress" - which of course they were, albeit by a narrow margin.

Brennan's replacement, Christy Cooney, promptly announced the proposed yellow-card rules would certainly be revisited in time. Daly clearly believes that can't be soon enough.

"Nothing has happened so far, but it will be taken up again," he says. "The games are always being reviewed, and we're conscious as well that next year is a playing rules change year. And it's not as if we're coming from a standing start. A fair bit of the preparatory work has been done, and we won't have to develop a whole awareness about the thing again. People should be much more tuned in to what's being done, and why it's being done.

"Particularly if we do get some continued regression, if the fouling rate continues to go up, and the negative, cynical stuff creeps back into the game. Body-colliding had effectively disappeared from the game, but was back again on Sunday. So we'll systematically go through the games, edit out material, and try to identify trends. If you're making a case for change it has to be evidence based, with video, and facts."

Conditions in Parnell Park certainly weren't conducive to quality football, but that didn't excuse two of Carlow's yellow cards late in game, both for remonstrating with match referee Pádraig Sinnott. For Derek Hayden, it was his second yellow card and resulted in his sending off.

Under the experimental yellow-card rules, such remonstration was an automatic yellow card, which Daly says helped clear up some of the confusion surrounding such offences.

"The experimental disciplinary rules were about classifying foul play. Abusing a referee is a sending off offence. But you seldom enough see that happening, even though there is a lot of it going on.

"But if the referee was sending the player off, and he was substituted, he'd be more likely to take that option. Equally, the player is less likely to engage in that kind of behaviour, because he'll know the referee has the option here, and won't hesitate in taking that option.

"It's a case of getting the balance right between deterrents and actually sending the player off. But ultimately it's about players being responsible for their own behaviour, and the only way you'll get them to do that is by putting effective deterrents in place. There's no point in saying abusing a referee is a red card offence, because referees largely don't give red cards for abuse."

At the end of the experimental rules, the GAA concluded they had produced the following: 1, More playing time; 2, More scores from play; 3, Less frees; 4, Less scores from frees; 5, Higher overall scoring rate in football; 6, More consistent application of the playing rules (referee assessments have also been factored in here); 7, Less foul play.

Sunday's opening games suggests a reversal on all counts.