GAA to consider change on 50m penalty for fouling player who catches kickout mark
A statement released today says the punishment could be changed from a 50m advanced free to a free on the spot where the foul occurs.
'Ard Chomhairle is to consider a proposed adjustment from the FRC to the penalty for a
foul on a player who catches a mark from a kick out to be changed from a 50m advanced
free to a free on the spot where the foul occurs,' the statement reads following a meeting of Coiste Bainistíochta and Ard Chomhairle which took place this weekend.
Elsewhere at the meeting, it was agreed that county boards will supply smart sliotars for semi-finals and finals in all county junior, intermediate and senior championships.
Advertisement
It was confirmed that London and New York's eligibility for the All-Ireland JFC is to remain unchanged for the 2026 competition.
There was also a 24% increase in Allianz League gate receipts leading to an increased distribution to counties.
The Comhairle Ard Oideachais has also proposed renaming the cup awarded to the winners of the JHC as the 'Corn Darragh Mhic Cárthaigh, in memory of MTU Cork student Darragh McCarthy, which was passed.
Check out the latest episode of The42′s GAA Weekly podcast here
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
RTÉ News
18 hours ago
- RTÉ News
David Clifford hoping to see Jack O'Connor back with Kerry in 2026
Kerry star David Clifford is hopeful Jack O'Connor will be in charge of the Kingdom in 2026 for their back-to-back assault on the Sam Maguire. In the aftermath of their All-Ireland final win over Donegal, O'Connor, who has never managed to retain the famed trophy despite his illustrious CV, hinted that his third spell in charge of the county may be coming to an end – but his answer certainly wasn't emphatic and Clifford is hopeful that he'll sign up for another season. "It would be great if we could keep it the same way it was for last year," he told RTÉ Sport as he picked up his latest PwC GAA/GPA Footballer of the Month award following his superb performances in July. "I thought we had a brilliant set-up so hopefully they'll figure things out." Clifford's latest individual award will be followed by more in the coming months with an All-Star locked in while he will be short-listed for the Player of the Year award, having won it in two of the last three seasons already. The Fossa man received an extraordinary amount of media coverage in the build-up to the final, but a nine-point haul pointed to a man unperturbed by what was said beforehand – and he feels that playing in the current era may help with that. "I don't know whether I've been lucky or unlucky in the fact that when I started playing it was the social media age, there's been a lot of hype all the time. "Not that it's always being there, but there's a bit of external noise, you try not to listen to it too much. "I wouldn't have put any major pressure on myself coming into the final, I felt we had a good game-plan, I felt we had a good chance coming into the game, satisfied with how we prepared." When the Allianz League rolls around at the start of next year, Clifford will just have turned 27 and arguably will be entering his prime years. What more can come from a man already considered by many to be the greatest of all time? Offering a note of caution, Clifford pointed out that Michael Owen once said that his prime came when he was 17 and the Kerry attacker said that he by no means feels that he is the finished article. "You have doubts every day, 'am I still good enough?' I think everybody has those. It's natural to have doubts in all walks of life. "We didn't actually put much attention on winning the All-Ireland this year. That was our goal of course, but as boring as it sounds, we actually did take it game by game – we didn't mention the All-Ireland much, we didn't talk about it." Much has been made of Clifford's incredible total of 8-62 in this year's championship, but equally as impressive was the side's ability to crank up their two-point returns. In the first half of the final, they took 11 two-point attempts, Clifford landing three and winning the free for the other successful attempt converted by free-taker Seán O'Shea. On their way to the Division 1 title in the spring, the orange flag barely fluttered with 14 in their eight games. Nine championship games, by contrast, brought 31 with Clifford registering 12 in all. "It evolved as the weather got better, when the air is hotter the ball can travel a bit further," said Clifford, who will be mindful of such dynamics when playing in the Irish Open pro-am next month. "Throughout the league with wet footballs, wet days, it's harder to kick them. "It's (still) day by day, game by game, we put a focus on it like we did all the other aspects that mattered."
Irish Times
3 days ago
- Irish Times
GAA referees signal approval for Football Review Committee rule changes
In October, the GAA will meet in special congress to deliberate on the final acceptance of the Football Review Committee 's (FRC) 'enhanced' rules. When these were being accepted for trialling last November, the process became a procession as all of the FRC proposals were overwhelmingly supported. It was a measure of how desperate the association had become to remedy the acknowledged ills of the game. This summer's championship was the best in years, by consensus, greatly improved by the new provisions, which are expected to secure GAA endorsement in little more than a month. For those at the centre of the project – the administrators and referees – there is relief that it all played out so well and a certain circumspection that even after such a successful introduction, a watching brief will be necessary, as the rules move into club competitions, especially knockout, and in a few months, their second season. GAA national match officials manager Donal Smyth is positive but cautious. READ MORE 'I suppose we haven't really done a debrief yet, so we'll be bringing them in now in the next couple of weeks and will sit down and go through the season. But overall, the one rule that's been really good for us has been the 'solo and go'. 'It's the one thing that has really helped the game and helped the whole discipline side because people have no time any more to get involved in narky stuff and that kind of stuff, so it just kind of moves the game on really quickly. Which has been really positive for me. 'I'd be really interested to see how does the discipline follow through to next year. We are looking at things in a six-month period that has gone well, so it's on now, to what the second year will look like.' The solo-and-go rule has contributed greatly to better behaviour around the awarding of frees. Photograph: Inpho The solo and go provides for a free to be taken quickly within four metres of its occurrence and for the player taking it not to be challenged for another four metres. It has contributed greatly to better behaviour around the awarding of frees, which under the old rules have been flashpoints. In recent weeks, the FRC has been trialling further changes, recently covered in The Irish Times, including restrictions on back passes and hand passes, but it is not yet clear which, if any, of these will go to the special congress. [ Changing minds in the post-puke football era: Playing in the FRC sandbox Opens in new window ] From Smyth's perspective, it's time to bank the gains from the rules that have been successfully applied. 'It would be ideal if there were no additional rules and then, if something's not working, go and change it at the end of the league or whenever.' Tyrone referee Seán Hurson is one of the most experienced and highly regarded officials in the game. He took charge of two All-Ireland finals in 2022 and last year. He echoes Smyth's point that the solo and go has been transformative. 'The awarding of a free was a constant challenge. Players would race 20m to argue the award with the referee, partly to delay the play and partly to put doubt in the ref's head. That's all impossible once the ball is back in play.' Although he had been pessimistic about how the changes would work when the big interprovincial trials took place last October, experience changed Hurson's view. 'I didn't think it was going to work as well because there was no intensity in those games, there was no jeopardy. But when there is jeopardy and there is intensity, players still were disciplined.' He believes this has come about because of the collaborative approach that was taken to the formulation of the changes and their implementation. Change was broken down, sector by sector and a range of seminars, both in person and online, were organised. Seán Hurson: 'We felt as referees that we were being listened to.' It has been remarked on that all big stakeholders, players, managers, referees, and administrators enthusiastically bought into the process. 'We've seen changes in the past,' says Hurson, 'where there was no consultation with officials and then, rules were maybe not implemented the way that some people thought they should have been implemented. 'But this time, both FRC and the officials seem to be happy, based on our last meeting there a few weeks ago. They also took to heart different recommendations through the season, which was probably a direct result of some of the meetings. 'So, we felt as referees that we were being listened to, and issues that we were having were being addressed.' Jim Gavin's committee left no stone unturned in relation to consultation and getting feedback, as the trial proceeded. Hurson acknowledges that 'the referee was probably thought about through the whole enhancement [process], about how it could be made easier for the referee and ensure more respect for the referee in implementing these rules'. As a referee, he wasn't initially sure about the restriction to the team captain, on players' right of audience with a referee. Any other verbal contact would be penalised by a 50m advancement of the free. 'A big part of my refereeing 'game management' is to communicate with players, and I felt that rule would be a detriment to my style of refereeing if I wasn't able to do that any more. 'That concerned me at the start, but we sought clarification from Jim Gavin and his team. They felt that communication was still okay. We all know the difference between somebody challenging your authority and someone with a genuine query.' GAA Football Review Committee trial game, Round Towers Clondalkin vs Fingallians. Jim Gavin speaks to both sides after the match. Photograph: Inpho There are concerns that with the focus moving to club activity and county championships that the burden on referees without the comparative luxury of a six-strong crew of independent officials may struggle to implement the new rules in pressurised situations. 'Whatever the rules, there will be mistakes,' according to Smyth. 'Education has been ongoing with club referees and there have been the Give Respect, Get Respect campaign and then, the RefWell online performance psychology and mental health training programme, launched this summer.' He also reports that referee recruitment is well on target to meet last year's figure of 600. There had been concerns that with all the focus on an expanding burden of new rules, new recruits would be put off. 'The danger would have been that numbers would drop because referees were being asked to do too much but the positive coverage of the rules' effect on indiscipline has helped to counterbalance that.' According to Hurson, the game is now more enjoyable both to play and referee. In a club context, he advises any official on their own just to focus on what's in front of and not to be agonising over 4v3 breaches behind the play. 'He's the only neutral official. The 4v3 is a huge challenge, but I think from a referee's point of view, we have all the rules to implement, not just the new rules. 'Therefore, we do miss double hops, we miss touching the ground. That's just human. You're going to miss some things and if you miss a 4v3, so be it but if you miss a red card, that's more serious.' Smyth says that the success of this year's championship owes a great deal to all the stakeholders who made it work but singles out the officials, thrown into a new and little understood world last January, who kept the show on the road. 'Real kudos to the referees and the officials but also to players and managers and teams and they bought into it as well. You would have to be reticent about saying that it's all solved, but it has started well.'
Irish Times
4 days ago
- Irish Times
The All-Ireland final was no classic, but new rules meant a big improvement on 2024
The 2024 All-Ireland football final between Armagh and Galway marked a moment in history. The Orchard County won just their second Sam Maguire Cup, their first for over 20 years, but it will likely be remembered for even more significant reasons. As long as the Football Review Committee's (FRC) proposals are ratified by GAA congress later this year, then Armagh-Galway will be the final intercounty game played without the FRC's rule changes that have breathed life back into football this year. The game itself is something of a time capsule – a tense, dreary game, with all the hallmarks of a sport that needed a speedy redraft. This year's final was hardly a classic itself as Kerry blew away Donegal with an early assault that the Ulster champions never recovered from. But a deeper analysis of both of these game shows that there are major signs of improvement in the wider footballing context. For starters, there was a nearly 20 per cent reduction in handpassing in 2025 compared to the previous final. With Galway particularly intent on playing through the hands, the 2024 final saw 593 fist passes, compared to 485 in this year's edition. Highlighting hand-passing's negative impact on games, over two-thirds of those passes went either sideways or backwards in both finals. READ MORE Kerry's last play of the first half came in for some criticism from neutrals after the final this year. The Kingdom held possession for over two minutes, waiting for the hooter to sound before David Clifford blasted a two-pointer over the bar to end the opening period. Although that possession seemed to last forever because of the lack of action, Galway actually kept the ball for longer on two separate occasions in their loss to Armagh. Those long stretches of idle possession would have been high on the list of priorities for the FRC, and things largely seem to have improved this year. The average length of time that possession was held in the final fell by nearly a quarter from last year – from 45 seconds to 34 – although this was down to an increase in shooting and more direct play rather than turnovers and tackling. One huge difference between the two games was in shooting. The contrast is stark – there were 45 shots in the 2024 final, but this was eclipsed by the total of 68 shots this year, an increase of 51 per cent. There was also a massive increase in the number of scores, from 25 to 41, so in this regard, the FRC changes have absolutely added more excitement to the game. There were far more shots in the 2025 final than in the previous year's game, with Kerry in particular targeting two-pointers. Graphic: Paul Scott Kerry managed five two-pointers, targeting the extra point with 14 total attempts, whereas Donegal failed to do likewise, scoring zero from three attempts. All of these came in the second half as they were chasing the game. While other rules have certainly helped create more scoring chances, the introduction of the two-point arc has been critical in the return of long-range scores. One odd detail from the 2024 final is that Paul Conroy likely would have won Galway the All-Ireland if the arc had been established by then, with the midfielder scoring three from the required distance. However, these were the only such scores, and only three more were attempted, while there were 17 shots from 40 metres or more in the 2025 edition. There were far less long-distance shots in the 2024 final, where Galway's Paul Conroy was a clear outlier. Graphic: Paul Scott Disappointingly, there was only the slightest increase in turnovers in the tackle, up one from last year to 11. The number of blocks was doubled from two to four, as was the number of turnovers in one-on-one situations, but these are very marginal gains. Traditionalists will also have been disappointed with the amount of kickpassing in this year's final. There was slightly less kickpassing than in the 2024 final, and the number of foot passes that travelled forward more than 30 yards fell from by three to nine. Kickouts were radically altered by the new rules, with short restarts having to travel beyond the 40-metre arc. This meant that there were massive changes in kickout strategy between the two finals. In 2024, 29 total kickouts went short to a player under little or no pressure – that number fell to just five in 2025. At the other end of the spectrum, 29 kickouts went long this year, over four times more than in the Armagh-Galway final, creating entertaining scraps for possession in midfield. This was crucial, as Kerry's determination to win the breaking ball on kickouts was the platform that their victory was built on. Galway's Paul Conroy and Oisin Conaty of Armagh. Photograph: Laszlo Geczo/Inpho Meanwhile, high fielding doubled from last year, with eight clean catches coming from these kickouts. Joe O'Connor, in particular, gave an exhibition of a skill we have not seen enough of in recent years. Overall, despite the 2025 final not being the most thrilling game we've seen this year, it shows that even an average game under the new rules can be an improvement on last year. While some skills of the game like kickpassing and tackling remained disappointingly minor aspects of the final, there were still significant gains in areas that add entertainment for fans, like shooting and high fielding. There are further changes that could be voted in at GAA congress, but after the best championship in years, there's plenty of reason for delegates to stick to the current rules, and not twist one more time. Regardless, it's almost guaranteed that Armagh's victory over Galway will be the final intercounty game played without some FRC changes. It's certainly a good reminder of why we needed these changes to begin with.
