The backlash to the Football Review Committee's enhanced rules kicked into a higher gear this week.
The managerial and coaching fraternity are really beginning to find their voice, raising their hackles against the bewildering pace of change and at the volume of new legislation coming down on top of them.
The reigning All-Ireland winning manager has been in the vanguard of the opposition from the start, the FRC-sceptic in chief.
Kieran McGeeney has spent much of the spring complaining about the rule changes, as well as complaining that you couldn't say anything against the rule changes. (these days, if you say anything against the FRC, they put you in jail, etc, etc).
'Geezer' has never evinced anything but seething contempt for nostalgic pundits, and he clearly sees their incessant whinging over many years as providing the unwelcome impetus behind this raft of changes.
It may have been Jim Gavin and Eamonn Fitzmaurice that devised the rules, but it was Pat Spillane and Joe Brolly's cribbing that laid the groundwork for them.
On Saturday evening, he dialled up the volume considerably.
"You can't ask teams to tactically build up things for three or four months and then change the rules four or five weeks before the championship. No matter what way you dress that up, that's nonsense.
"People are just getting carried away with themselves. And now we're told that when you pass the ball back into the square, it's only one pass (to the goalkeeper that is allowed). So you're only allowed one pass. And next we'll be told that you're only allowed to do it when the sun is shining into the east.
"What is it they want us to do? Do they not want the goalkeepers to touch the ball?"
"Confusion" has become the watchword among managers in regard to aspects of football's new rules
— The Sunday Game (@TheSundayGame) March 2, 2025
Ciarán Whelan runs through some of the key examples from the weekend, and also adds "I'd scrap the hooter"
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Even some of the wise heads involved in introducing the new rules are beginning to have second thoughts.
Malachy O'Rourke, the FRC legislator, was content to wave through the changes to the kickout rule.
Malachy O'Rourke, the Tyrone manager, appears to have grave misgivings over the same changes.
"One thing that I don't particularly like is that every kick-out has to go outside the arc, and every kick out has just become a 50/50 one in many ways," he said after their loss to Kerry.
But most scathing of all was Robbie Brennan, who went in studs up on the work of the committee, claiming all they had done was create a bastardised mishmash of various rival sports.
"My own honest opinion is they've lost the run of what we're trying to do, the whole idea here was to try and protect the game and we’re not doing that," Brennan told reporters after his team's last-gasp win over Westmeath.
"That’s not Gaelic football, you turn your phone on and it’s 17-0 to somebody, it’s a joke to be honest with you the way it's gone.
"It's a mix of outdoor basketball with a breeze, soccer style defending with 11 behind the ball in zonal stuff, and a bit of rugby thrown in for a few scrums around the middle, God forbid we forget our rugby brethren.
"I don't like it. It's not Gaelic football."
There is some irony that in the first year that the Meath senior footballers are beginning to pull up trees since the Twin Towers came down, their manager has lambasted the rules under which they appear to be thriving. At least in that sense, Brennan's objections can't be attributed to self-interest, as is usually assumed to be the case with current managers.
"It's not Gaelic football"
Boiled down to its essence, the Meath's manager's objection to the new game was a straightforward one - "It's not Gaelic football."
But then this gave rise to the fundamental question - what is that?
Back in the 1960s, it was a game where players just concerned themselves with lamping the ball downfield with all their might and let the 'receiver' - terminology which wasn't in vogue at the time - worry about the rest. It was a game where players popped the ball into the sky before fisting it, like Peter Schmiechel when he was about to take a long kickout. (It was a relic of the black and white era, the sight of lad throwing the ball up tennis serve-style and then George Foreman-ing it over the crossbar from 25 yards).
In the 70s, it was 'Gaelic basketball', where Kerry would shift the ball up the pitch in a sweeping move reminiscent of the Boston Celtics, at the end of which the Bomber Liston or John Egan would deftly hand-pass the ball into the net past an advancing Paddy Cullen.
In the late 80s, it was a game where lads pulled and dragged out of one another for 70 minutes and at the end, Meath usually won.
In the early 2000s, it was a game where some Kerry starlet spent his summer afternoons being swarmed and jostled by a crack team of furious northerners, determined to trample him and his lofty reputation into the Croke Park turf.
By the summer of 2024, it was a game played in highly structured phases, where teams would take turns to mount extremely slow and measured attacks in front of packed set defences. 58 passes later or thereabouts, one of them might chance a shot, either inside the 'scoring zone' or from further out, if Paul Conroy or Michael Langan were on the prowl. Occasionally, a goal chance might arise accidentally if the long-range shooter failed to connect properly.
Anyone with particularly vivid memories of last year's Kerry-Derry All-Ireland quarter-final or indeed the first half of the All-Ireland final might think that making the game look as little like Gaelic football as possible was probably the way to go.
Those coaches who spent years masterminding the ways of the old game resent the new legislators sticking their oar in and forcing them to adapt their teaching module. They argue the game should have been allowed to evolve in its own way and at its own pace without such radical interference from the powers-that-be. As in any culture war, the media have been indicted as cheerleaders for one side, in this case the FRC.
So far, this spring has seen a role-reversal.
For years, coaching gurus and those on the managerial merry-go-round were the main cheerleaders for their 'intriguing' product, while the supporters were slumped back in their seats, sighing and scrolling their phones.
In early 2025, by contrast, the fans appear to be broadly enthused by many of the new rules - with some misgivings - while many of the managers are chafing at the restrictions on their tactical imaginations, lamenting the difficulty in exerting control on proceedings at key moments.
The only exception is the roving goalkeeper, who, under present-day coaches, has evolved into a deep-lying playmaker, while the more purist-minded fellas in the stand want him tethered to his 21m line once and for all.
Fans who are enamoured by the new rules might be concerned that some of the better rule changes might be contaminated by association with the needless or overly petty ones.
The FRC are meeting this evening with a view to finalising any tweaks before championship. They could help themselves by reining in some of their excesses and softening a few of the penalties.
The requirement that players be made hand the ball to an opposition player when a free is awarded is a case of the cult of civility gone mad.
Allowing teams to avail of a 40m two-point shot in the case of the 'three-up' breach should be changed. Teams who lose a player to a black or red card obviously should be made keep to the 'three-up' rule.
Restricting the kickout to 20 seconds is causing needless aggro, especially given it's an area where referees are known to be susceptible to the influence of a raucous home crowd.
In other areas, they could double down on the radicalism. They may have had it right the first time with the four-point goal, to maintain its premium value vis-a-vis the increasingly common two-pointers.
Some coaches have raised worthwhile points about the extremely attritional nature of the new game for middle eight players, which is taking an increased toll in terms of injuries. Jim McGuinness' recommendation that a sixth sub (or perhaps more) be allowed could be worth a look.
But the central headline changes - the requirement to keep three players in attack, the kickouts which have led to more contests, the solo-and-go - should be retained.
Returning to the game as it was played in 2024? After all, many would have said that wasn't Gaelic football either.
