30-07-2025
Last FRC sandbox game may be more about ruling things out than in
The Football Review Committee's experimentation with Gaelic football officially comes to a close tonight with the final 'sandbox' game in Abbotstown.
Round Tower, Clondalkin, the home club of FRC chair Jim Gavin, play Fingallians in a game where, along with the new rules that we have become accustomed with since last January, a number of others will be trialled.
Chief among them is the four-point goal, which was in play for the interprovincial series held at Croke Park last October, before being pulled days later. It was felt at the time, in a Championship where Division One teams face off against those from Division Four, conceding a succession of four-pointers would be too demoralising for the underdogs.
However, there was also a view that with the introduction of the two-point arc, the incentive to go for a three-point goal was diminished, though data suggests that the number of green flags in this year's Championship is in line with previous seasons.
But the feedback from various parties to the FRC was that this was something worth revisiting. Hence, this one-off sandbox game, which is the first of its kind in several months.
Additionally, an adaptation of the backcourt rule in basketball was trialled, whereby a team can't bring the ball back into their own half once they've crossed halfway. Last Sunday Gavin referenced the Louth-Meath Leinster final in that regard, suggesting that teams would be prepared to push out more if the opposition didn't have the option of funnelling the ball back into their own half.
Elsewhere, the clock/hooter system will be looked at, with regard to whether the game should immediately end once the hooter sounds, as in ladies football.
Is Seán O'Shea booting the ball into the Cusack Stand last Sunday the manner in which the Championship should conclude?
Meath captain Eoghan Frayne deliberately kicking a free out over the endline to seal their quarter-final win over Galway was a rather unsatisfactory conclusion to that match.
Indeed, given the confusion that reigned at the end of the Monaghan-Donegal Ulster Championship tie around what constituted the end of the game, is it as well handing it back to the referee altogether?
But, frankly, while there could be tinkering around matters such as timekeeping, it's difficult to envisage anything wholesale beyond that at this stage.
After six months of experimentation across hundreds of inter-county games, the likes of the four-point goal is hardly going to be voted in at Special Congress on October 4 on the strength of a midweek challenge match between two club sides.
Essentially, this evening's game may have be more about ruling things out than in.
