Yellow card rules may not be sold in one lot

CONGRESS WILL get to choose whether to incorporate some or all of the new yellow-card offences into the rule book. There is, of course, the option of doing away with them completely, which the GAA’s head of games, Pat Daly, says would maintain a scenario whereby “it pays to foul”.

Both Daly and the disciplinaryplaying rules taskforce chairman Liam O’Neill outlined the immediate future of these yellow-card offences in Croke Park yesterday: they will remain in place for the duration of the national leagues, without alteration; there is an amnesty on any cards to date, which removes any carry-over from pre-season competitions; and Congress, which is set for April 18th, will ultimately decide (on the two-thirds majority rule) what long-term future, if any, the yellow-card offences will have.

“What we’re proposing for Congress is, firstly, the motion that they accept the principle of a player being sent-off for a yellow-card offence, and being replaced,” explained Daly. “We will then go through the six specific offences for football and hurling, and the one exclusive to hurling. Each one will be taken separately, so it won’t be a question of taking the complete package or nothing at all.

“But if they do accept the principle then it will be very difficult not to accept the complete package. And there certainly won’t be the case of the same foul accepted in football, but not in hurling. There is only one offence exclusive to hurling, and that’s to use the hurley in a careless manner.”

When pressed on the likelihood of Congress agreeing to some or all of the new yellow-card offences, Daly responded boldly: “I would be confident, because the games need them. There is an increasing appreciation now, at all levels, of the need to ensure they stay in place. We just can’t have a scenario anymore where it pays to foul.

“And there are so many other positive outcomes. More playing time, more scores, less frees, and that has to be good for the game.

“There will always be people that are opposed to change,” said Daly, “but I’m happy that the tide is turning, that there is now an understanding and appreciation of what we’re trying to do.

“Maybe there is still some fear that referees mightn’t get the balance right between red, yellow and black, but I think we’re getting there.

“And based on the sessions we’ve had with referees I believe they’ll get it as near to right as you can. Skill has to win out here, because we can’t have a situation where fouling is the predominant feature of the game.”

O’Neill has already dismissed the suggestion the yellow-card offences are somehow more punishing to hurling than football: “We never once said there was a problem with hurling. We were asked to deal with fouls on the field of play. Like body colliding, which is unmanly, cowardly. Or the pull-down, the trip, the arm around the neck. These fouls have no place in our game.

“But as the examples we’ve shown here today prove, these are happening. And the careless use of the hurl is a particularly serious offence, because a hurl is a dangerous weapon. If these things aren’t happening then they won’t be punished, and the emphasis the whole time has to be promoting skill. But I would ask the hurling managers: which of these fouls do they want to keep in hurling? It’s up to them to answer that.”

Several examples of yellow-card offences from the pre-season competitions were presented, as was some footage from the recent meeting of Wicklow and Louth in the O’Byrne Cup, which showed four minutes and three minutes of uninterrupted play: “This is pretty much unrivalled,” said Daly, “compare it to the Cork-Meath AllIreland final of 1990, which the longest passage of uninterrupted play for the entire game was 90 seconds.”

In confirming the amnesty of any yellow cards received to date, O’Neill added the proposal for Congress was that two yellow cards, strictly within the same competition, within a 48-week period, would result in a one-match ban from that same competition: “We’re currently hamstrung by what is in the rulebook, and this is only our proposal, because it wasn’t in our remit to go into punishment “off-the-field”. So that will be for the next stage.”