GAA Football Review Committee chairperson Jim Gavin addresses delegates at Croke Park. Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile
By Cian O’Connell
“It's a milestone, a milestone event to get these motions passed through,” Football Review Committee chairperson Jim Gavin reflected following GAA Congress at Croke Park on Saturday.
All 49 motions were passed at GAA headquarters with Gavin encouraged that the FRC core enhancements received such significant support. “The ambition of the association, in this instance Gaelic Football, becomes the most exciting amateur game to play much, and that speaks to that vision,” Gavin added.
The former Dublin manager acknowledged that 2025 will be a crucial year for Gaelic Football with the new changes being adopted. “We're not there yet,” Gavin says.
“In some ways, the work only starts now. That was probably the easy bit is doing all the research, the data, the qualitative surveys, the analysis, the test sandbox games, the inter-provincial games. Now the rubber hits the road to get those games out to inter-county competitions.
"I'm really pleased that the club players, which make up 96 percent of our membership, are going to get the opportunity to play this exciting brand of Gaelic football. So that's very pleasing.
That was crucial according to Gavin. “The first thing I'll say is that that discourse amongst the counties and at club level was really important,” Gavin remarked.
“People need to understand what they're voting for, and that's why we got to as many of the county committee meetings as possible, and any ones that we were invited to, we were there.
“What impressed us was that the level of knowledge of the game, the interaction between the clubs and the county boards was very impressive.
“Then, the follow up that the county boards gave to us in terms of, ‘well, we've been mandated by our clubs,’
“That's the way it's meant to work, that shows the system and how it works and it's kind of that form of deliberate democracy where everybody has an opportunity to express their views.
We listen to them, we take them on balance and then make a decision and put it out to vote. I've been very, very impressed with the counties, with the clubs. For us, it was important that the clubs got to see it.
“If nothing else, if a rule change arrived in the first of January, next year, a permanent change and club players hadn't had the chance to play, that would cause a bit of chaos.
“And secondly, a scenario where you have club players viewing or watching games, inter-county games, seeing this type of football, even at the inter-provincials games, talking to club players, they want to play it.”
There has been plenty of feedback following a recent competition staged in Meath. “Talking to the Meath players who played in Ashbourne last week, they don't want to go back,” Gavin says.
“They just want to go forward. And are these 100% perfect? You’ll never get perfection, but we're looking for a very high standard of a game, of rules to appreciate and enforce the game.
“If there are learnings, and I'm sure there will be lots of them, and our intent is that our work begins now when we begin to analyse the data coming back from both inter-county and thankfully club games in the future.”
