Rules, Rules and More Rules – Making It Up as You Go Along
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On the one side you have O’Neill and his merry men who have had enough of the pulling and dragging and general feckin’ about that leads to complaints from managers and pundits alike. Their argument, supported by the likes of Joe Brolly, is that the game is improved as a result.
In the other corner, led by the likes of Geezer and Seamus McEnaney you have the guys that think these namby pamby tinkerings are taking the aggression and manliness out of gaelic football. As the famous Chinese philosopher Fuk King Dung said ‘Ahso, Truth has three parents – Mine, Yours and its Own.’
With more skill for improvisation than Joe Canning, Liam O’Neill is rapidly revising the revised rules to increase the chances of getting them through Congress. Not content with coining new fouls such as ‘the pull down’ and the ‘body collide’, Liam and his merry men have decided that ‘to wrestle with an opponent, on the ground, and away from play”, is no longer deemed a highly disruptive foul, and instead becomes a black book offence. So here’s the scenario – Gooch is standing beside the corner back waiting on the early ball. Next thing, the hoor wrestles him to the ground and that is deemed a black book. Meanwhile out the field, someone is marginally late with a ‘pull down’ or engages in a dastardly ‘body collide’ and gets the dreaded yellow card.
Liam’s reasoning is that the wrestling is loaded in favour of the defender. So rather than address the problem which they should do via the umpire, the defender can get away with it more often. Indeed if the referees applied the rules that are there, this nonsense would all be redundant. It has also been revealed that a new category of foul called ‘The Ricey’, i.e. touching an opponent in a way that could be deemed suggestive or offensive, will be added to the list of shame.
Talking Balls often watches the children play out in the backyard. They make up their own rules for games and when one wee bollix isn’t happy with the particular interpretation, he’ll unilaterally change the rule to suit himself. That’s fine until the other Cub identifies a loophole and takes the same action. It’s great to know the lads have a career ahead in GAA officialdom.
