A mind-changer in the post-puke-football era: what it was like playing in the FRC's sandbox game

Irish Times

3 days ago

After an incredibly successful first year under the new rules, the
Football Review Committee
(FRC) headed back to the laboratory for further tests last Wednesday night. A 'sandbox' game was hosted between Dublin Senior 2 sides Fingallians and Round Towers Clondalkin in Abbotstown, to trial a few extra rules that hadn't made the cutline for the 2025 season.
Heading out towards Blanchardstown though, there was a feeling that we, the players, were also on trial.
Not only was the place, date and time of the match announced by FRC chairman
Jim Gavin
during the RTÉ broadcast of the All-Ireland final, but the chat in Towers' dressingroom was mostly around the bits and pieces posted on social media about the game, and whether a cadre of football nerds and journalists would descend upon the National Sports Campus. But the call was coming from inside the house.
I was out there in both a professional and recreational capacity, having played for Towers since before I can remember, and certainly before I became a 'journo'. In any case, it turned out that there was a smattering of apparent neutrals in the stands, but before we got out on to the pitch, we were visited by Towers' most famous son, Gavin himself.
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The rules of the match were set out to us. We were to begin with a 15-minute period, where goals would be worth four points and we would be unable to bring the ball back into our own half once we had crossed the halfway mark. The pitchside hooter would bring an immediate stop to the first quarter (rather than the play being allowed continue), and there would also be some alteration to the current kick out mark – although it wasn't clear to most of us what that was exactly.
Jim Galvin explaining experimental rules to Round Towers players. Photograph: Alan Betson
In any case, that wasn't much of a concern when we saw the Fingallians team, who appeared mostly to be well over 6ft tall. By the end of the first quarter, we were grateful that the hooter brought the game to an abrupt halt. A couple of four-point goals had hit the back of our net and we had already dug ourselves into a hole in this particular sandbox.
Before the second quarter, Gavin came over to have a few words with us, and told us that it would begin with the scenario that we were six points up. Despite an improvement in the second period, we still conceded a four-pointer, which meant that we had lost the period by five. There were a few wry smiles when Jim came back to us at half-time with a cheery 'well done, you won that by a point'.
The boosted goals had been very telling in the first half, as Fingallians went direct as often as they could. However, the game had also become unbalanced very quickly because of them.
There was a couple of breaches of the halfway-line rule and both teams were able to press up farther because their opponents couldn't just turn and play it backwards. After the match, there was broad agreement that it was the most viable and positive of the sandboxed rules.
After half-time came two evenly matched five-minute periods, where each side took a turn at playing a scenario where they were two points up to start. Then, for the final 20 minutes, another rule was introduced: a player receiving a hand pass would have to kick pass. In other words a team could not play two hand passes in a row.
This led to more chaos, more verticality and more turnovers, and it was probably the most enjoyable part to play in.
Round Towers players discuss adapting to experimental rules against Fingalians. Photograph: Alan Betson
There were a few lapses on the rules throughout the game – lads passing into their own half, or playing one-twos through the hands in the final period. There were also some unusual decisions being made because of the different parameters, with more long balls being played, especially in the last 20.
Having apparently become overwhelmed by the spirit of the game, I latched on to a loose pass and drove out of defence only to absolutely welly an awful pass into the full-forward line. I later managed to somewhat balance the books, cutting across the ball nicely to switch play after receiving a hand pass. It wasn't a defence splitter, but it did give pace to the attack on the far side, and it's exactly the sort of risky pass I would never play under the current rules.
The increase in kicking in the final period had opened the game up, even if the rule itself wasn't perfect. When players did kick, they usually had the skills to execute their pass.
But it was obvious that many of us simply don't get our heads up quickly enough, having been raised in the post-puke-football era. The FRC changes aren't just fixing a rules problem, they have to address the now ingrained safety-first culture in players.
Those attitudes may actually prove harder to change than the rules.