Players and officials getting to grips with football trials

​By Paul Keane

Last night's Ryan Cup game between DCU and ATU Galway was only five seconds old when referee Ian Howley was called upon to implement one of the new trial rules.

Racing forward to contest the breaking ball from the throw-in, DCU centre back Eoin Ward came sliding in to win the ball but his momentum took him about a foot across the half-way line. When the Roscommon man then attempted to burst out of the ruck of bodies into space, he stepped back across the half-way line and violated what has been termed the 'back-court' rule. The outcome was a free to ATU Galway.

Initially there was confusion among the players before Howley, fresh off refereeing the Dublin SFC final last weekend, explained what had occurred.

The players clearly took note because there were no more violations for the remainder of the third-level league encounter.

The closest anyone came was ATU Galway's James Summerville who, late in the second half, collected the ball from a colleague and crossed over the half-way line with a single foot. The rest of his body, and the ball, was in the attacking half and play continued on.

Under the trials, short kick-outs inside the arc are permitted, although neither DCU's Mike Tansley nor Ethan Carden in goals for ATU Galway really went after them.

For the record, DCU won the game by 3-24 to 4-8 and were able to build up a 3-9 to 1-3 half-time lead thanks in part to winning six of ATU Galway's 14 kick-outs in that period, all of which were either medium or long kicks.

With goals worth four points, DCU appeared to target them and had three registered inside the opening 15 minutes, from Eoghan O'Connor Flanagan, the excellent Jack Kelly and penalty taker Tom Plunkett.

After 17 minutes, the 2025 Sigerson Cup winners led by 3-4 to no score, a 16-point advantage given the increased reward for raising green flags.

It seemed like a done deal at that stage, a certain win for DCU, but with ATU Galway much improved after the restart and able to plunder three second-half goals, allied to one they'd already scored in the first half, they cut it back to a five-point game at one stage.

That was as good as it got for the westerners who ultimately slipped to a heavy Round 2 defeat.

The real intrigue, from a neutral perspective, was just how the new rules impacted on the encounter. And it was an eye-opening experience, particularly around kick-passing and hand-passing.

Chains of hand-passes are restricted to three under the trials and this led to a dramatic reduction in the incidence of fisted passes. DCU hand-passed the ball 116 times, compared to 75 kicks. Speaking ahead of the implementation of the new rules, Kevin McStay, chair of the Gaelic Football Expert Advisory Group, noted that the ratio of hand-passes to foot-passes is 'ranging from 3.8 to 5.3 hand-passes to one kick-pass, depending on what competition you're analysing'.

Compared to that, the DCU ratio of 1.5:1 was a major change. ATU Galway's stats were similar with 97 hand-passes overall, to 56 kick-passes, a ratio of 1.7:1.

What was evident in the game was that hand-passes were largely saved for high risk, or increased risk at least, situations, such as attempting to work the ball out of a congested defence, or when on the attack and trying to punch holes through an opposition's defensive screen.

Victors DCU only hand-passed the ball three times in a row on 12 occasions, seven in the first-half and five after the break.

And most of the time, it reflected the urgency of the situation, like when they strung three hand-passes together to create the opening for O'Connor Flanagan's sixth minute goal.

Louth's Tony McDonnell had a strong first half for DCU and twice in that opening 30 minutes, he was played into a scoring position for points thanks to chains of three consecutive hand-passes.

On another occasion, three hand passes created an opening for Kelly who clipped a shot off the post.

In the second half, Kelly and Ciarán O'Hare both scored points for DCU after three hand-pass combinations.

It was a similar story with ATU Galway who only made three consecutive hand-passes on seven occasions in the game. In the 28th minute, a four-in-a-row of ATU Galway hand-passes was spotted by referee Howley who blew for a free. However, ATU Galway got away with four consecutive hand-passes on two other occasions, in the 40th and 41st minutes.

That's not to point out that Howley and his team of officials got it wrong, moreso to underline just how difficult it can be to keep track of passes in fast-paced games. For the 40th minute four-in-a-row infringement, for example, ATU Galway's Dara Walsh gave the impression that he was going to perform a kick-pass after the second hand-pass, and then opted to hand-pass instead, keeping the chain going and perhaps confusing the situation.

In the case of the 41st minute four-in-a-row, ATU Galway's Cian Rafferty actually attempted a fifth consecutive hand-pass after taking the ball into contact and was eventually penalised for over-carrying, so DCU got that free anyhow.

Speaking to DCU GAA TV after the game, referee Howley spoke about the challenge of implementing the three hand-pass rule.

"With the hand-passes, I was counting them out loud," said Howley. "There are times in a game when you move ahead of the game and you mightn't be focusing on the play because you're moving into position and then you see a pass going and you're trying to register, 'Well was that a hand-pass or a foot-pass?'

"So you have to be careful that you're looking at the pass the whole time. But in terms of the players they were pretty much on the ball."

Howley said that implementing the hand-pass rule is the most challenging of the various amendments.

"At one stage a player asked me, 'How long is left?'" said the O'Dwyer's clubman. "You're telling him, 'There's eight minutes left', and the ball is being played across and suddenly you've lost (the knowledge of) what was that pass that was given over? On a night like tonight, early in the new rules, we'd be forgiven but if we're down the line and if this is part of a full suite of new rules, then you're not going to be forgiven for that."

Like DCU, ATU Galway retained strings of hand-passes for high risk and high opportunity situations.

For instance, in the 18th minute, three hand-passes in a row created an opening that led to a foul on an ATU Galway player. Play restarted with a solo-and-go by David Prendergast who assisted Fionn MacDonnacha for a badly needed goal at that stage.

ATU Galway's second goal, early in the second-half was a palm in by Luc McHugh with three hand-passes again required to work the opening.

Players appeared to take the new rules in their stride overall with very few instances of forced kick-passes.