GAELIC GAMES:SUNDAY'S ULSTER championship encounter between Donegal and Antrim may have been a poor match but it does it warrant a review of the playing rules?

On the weekend’s Sunday Game, panellist Pat Spillane said that during the Ballybofey fixture “all the ills of the modern game were in evidence: too much hand-passing, soloing, losing possession and frees”.

Even Antrim manager Liam Bradley lamented the quality of play brought about by both teams’ decision to funnel back and play defensively. At one point, as highlighted by Spillane, there were 14 Donegal players in shot when Antrim kicked a second-half point.

“If I had paid in to watch that I wouldn’t go to it,” said the Antrim manager, “plain and simple because it was brutal so it was. But that’s the way the game is going, that’s modern football and unless they bring in a rule change that’s the way it’s going to be for years to come.

“I don’t know if it’s less numbers on the pitch, I think maybe there should be some sort of a rule only allowing three hand-passes and then you have to kick the ball. But that would be hard to referee.”

The above views aren’t unusual and concerns are frequently expressed about the diminishing role played by kicking in the modern game.

At the 2007 GAA coaching conference Prof Niall Moyna of DCU’s School of Health and Human Performance delivered a paper based on research theses carried out in his university that challenged the perceived decline in kicking.

The number of kicked passes in a match had virtually remained unchanged in over 35 years but the number of fist passes had jumped to the extent that from a situation in the 1970s and ’80s when there were as many fisted passes as kicked passes, football is now recording a ratio of 3:1 in favour of the fist.

Speaking about Sunday’s match Moyna told this newspaper that the most significant change in football was in the duration of time teams hold on to possession.

“The big, big change in the past 30 years has been the length of possessions, which have gone from an average of 7.5 seconds to between 19 and 20 seconds. If you’re going to retain the ball the way you’ll do it is with short hand passing but most passages of play end with a foot pass so it’s still there.

“But it’s used more judiciously. In the past it was more of a punt kick – you put it up there and the half forward had to fight for it. Now it’s to keep possession and, boom, hit that man inside depending on the formation you’re using. It is part of the evolution of the game.”

He disagrees with suggestions that the rules need to be changed to protect specific skills within the game or to elevate one style of play beyond another.

“I would be opposed to that and it’s something I’ve given a lot of thought to. My view on that is ‘whose perception of the game is right?’ That’s what it boils down to.

“You talk to my dad who played in the 1940s and ’50s and that’s his perception of the how the game should be played and you ask someone who played in the 1970s – like Colm O’Rourke – and they’ll have a different view.

“I understand that, as I’m a product of the 1970s and ’80s myself but who are we to impose our style of play – the way we perceive Gaelic football should be played? It’s part of the evolution of the game and I’d be very reticent to start regulating how the game should be played.

“Look at the current All-Ireland champions, Cork. They’re one of the very few teams who actually play three inside in the full-forward line.

“They’re a big, mobile team that can move the ball at pace. You have to develop a game plan around the players you have.”

He feels that Bradley’s proposal to restrict the number of consecutive hand passes, which was trialled in the 1995 league, has practical limitations, which would quickly become clear.

“I guarantee you that the player would not be able to kick the ball on the third pass because every single team would have it down pat.

“Let them go once, let them go twice and on the third – boom, three men on the guy getting the ball. That’s what I would do.

“It’s a slippery slope. Look at it this way: in 50 years’ time the current generation will be in their 70s and they’re probably going to give out about the way the game is played in the future!”