Inter-county boss identifies one new rule that 'sucks the energy out of the game'
There were four frees awarded in Saturday's Kildare-Galway challenge game in Newbridge after players failed to adhere to the new 'three-up' rule.
New Kildare boss Brian Flanagan has questioned whether the punishment for breaking the new ‘three-up’ rule is too harsh, saying it “sucks the energy out of the game”.
Flanagan saw his side prosper as a result of rule on three separate occasions in the first half of Saturday’s challenge game against Galway in Newbridge, which the Connacht champions won by 2-18 to 0-17. With Galway players straying past the newly-marked hatched halfway line to leave only two teammates in the opposition half, referee David Gough awarded three 20-metre frees to Kildare, as per rule, with Alex Beirne slotting all of them.
Another aspect to the rule came to light in the second half when Kildare were penalised, though Matthew Tierney took up the option of shooting from outside the new scoring arc and converted for a two-pointer.
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Flanagan said: “I absolutely get that there needs to be a punishment for that if it's breached, in order for it to be a thing. But it actually sucks the energy out of the game a bit because the crowd and everybody is looking around, what was that blown for?
“Everyone is a little bit unsure for that 10, 15 seconds. The ball is carried up sometimes from 100 yards back up the field and it's kicked over from 20 yards and we reset on the kick-out. But I don't know is that adding a huge amount to the game, so I think that's something to look at. Whether the punishment matches the crime at the minute, I'm not quite sure.”
When it was put to Flanagan’s Galway counterpart Padraic Joyce that players won’t transgress in this regard with the same frequency come the Allianz League once they adapt, he replied: “You wouldn’t think so but we’ve got three weeks training done and we’re still making the same mistakes. We’re playing in-house games and we’re still doing it here.
“If you go close to the line and your man takes off, your natural instinct is like, ‘Oh, I don’t want to be seen as lazy, I have to take off after my man’ and we got caught once or twice but look, it’s something we’ll look at, yeah.
He added: “If it says three up top, keep three up top. As I do say, why not keep four to make sure you have three? We got caught for it three times in the first half so it’s a rule there, let’s just go by it and abide by it and it’s a huge penalty, it’s a kick in front of the goal.”
That aspect of the new rules arguably served up the biggest talking point of the game until Paul Conroy came off the bench in the second half and went on a kicking spree, scoring four two-pointers, three of them in the closing seven minutes, to bring Galway’s orange flag tally to six on the evening, while Kildare had none.
“Lookit, he’s only back there, today is his first day back with us, he’s doing a bit of training on his own,” Joyce explained. “He’s not in bad shape in fairness. He wanted to play a little bit, get used to the new rules so he enjoyed it anyway.”
Kildare only had one effort at a two-pointer in the game as Brian McLoughlin’s first half shot went wide, though Flanagan said there is no policy against going for them on Kildare’s end.
“It was just the way it panned out, genuinely. We have been working on it in training. We would always encourage lads that if their body position is right and they feel good in the moment, you take the shot on, regardless of where they are. It was just the way game panned out. We didn't score any of them and Galway probably got six overall.”
Of course, the goalkeeper’s remit is transformed under the new rules, as they can only take possession in their own half while in the penalty area, but netminders on both sides joined the play in the opposition half on occasions without significantly impacting the game.
Additionally, kickouts must travel beyond the new 40-metre arc, while outfield players are now permitted to lurk close to goal and behind the goalkeeper while the kickout is being taken - but it wasn’t a feature of the game at all on Saturday night.
“If it's your own kick-out I don't see a whole lot of benefit to it,” said Flanagan. “If it's the opposition kick-out you're giving them an extra man. I don't know will anybody do it before the kickout is taken.
“You might have a defender, or a full-forward, sprinting straight in just as it's taken but at the minute it's not something we're looking at.”
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