Senior inter-county challenge game: Monaghan 4-24 Antrim 1-12
WHEN you decide to introduce a raft of head-wrecking new playing rules, it’s probably not the best time to shelve your pre-season competitions.
When the paying public eagerly push through cold turnstiles in the last weekend of January to watch some National League Football action, they’re in for a bit of a surprise.
It’ll be like when VAR was introduced in soccer. Gaels will be consumed and divided by the new rules just as soccer was and still is with VAR.
Brace yourself for the months ahead as the new rules will be the dominant, and probably overbearing, discourse of the day.
But, until the last weekend of January, the more discerning Gaelic football fan must seek out unadvertised challenge games burrowed away from prying eyes that can only be reached via ‘B’ roads around the country.
On a dank Saturday afternoon, the narrow road bobbed and weaved until the tips of the goalposts of Inniskeen Grattan’s GAA club could be seen on the left-hand side where the senior footballers of Monaghan and Antrim grappled with the Football Review Committee’s seven ‘core enhancements’.
For long stretches of this challenge match, played across three 25-minute periods with only three match officials in place and played in front of the two extended panels and a couple of video analysts at the back of the stand, the players were as unsure about what would unfold as much as the grey skies had in store for the afternoon.
Although healthy scepticism must be an integral part of any rules debate, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to be reaching for hyperbole or making grand statements so early in the experiment.
But, for good or ill, the changes will be far-reaching. Saturday’s game was frantic and untidy.
The game was quicker and less intricate. Lungs were on fire among those poor souls galivanting between the two ‘45s.
Both teams played more vertically; it was as if those long, laborious, lateral patterns of play of the past had been purged from the game overnight.
There was more kicking and less hand passing. And how can you not love a two-pointer?
As match officials try to enact some of the new laws and players interpret them, we don’t know yet if the teething problems are just that, or worse.
What unfolded in the eerily quiet environs of Inniskeen on Saturday afternoon was a field sport slightly unsure of itself.
Is a quicker, more frantic, scaled-back version of Gaelic football having a deskilling impact on its players?
With any radical departure from old playing rules, that’s bound to be the case, at least in the short term until coaches around the country get their tentacles into the small detail of the seven rule enhancements and improvise.
“Every day is a learning day,” said Monaghan boss Gabriel Bannigan after watching his side breeze to a comfortable victory.
“The game is quicker which is to be welcomed. There’s a wee bit more space to attack having to keep three men up and three men back, so the quick kick is on more often and you can see that with teams – they’re looking to kick, which is good.”
The problem with both Monaghan and Antrim kicking into their three inside men on Saturday was that they were quite primitive attempts.
A recurring theme of the afternoon was the attacker would sprint in front of their man-marker, sliding on the wet surface to collect the ball, but often going away from goal and with little advancing support to off-load to a team-mate.
The balls in were straight and so too were a lot of the attacker’s runs.
There were no forwards peeling off the sideline, making small, looping runs to shoot.
The counter-attacking on Saturday was undoubtedly quicker but less thoughtful at the same time.
Sometimes you wondered: does every attack need to be at break-neck speed?
With Monaghan winning the aerial stakes and Antrim’s experimental full-back line being a bit spooked by the space it had to mind, it was no surprise the home side aimed for goal quite a bit and hit the net four times.
Kieran Duffy almost took the stanchion off its hinges with a piledriver, while Stephen O’Hanlon didn’t encounter a great deal of resistance from Antrim in grabbing Monaghan’s second goal, both coming in the opening third.
In the dying embers and with a raft of substitutes made on both teams, Bobby McCaul and Fergal Hanratty found the net to complete the rout.
Substitute Ronan Boyle grabbed Antrim’s only three-pointer of the day with Conor Stewart, Ryan Murray, Dermot McAleese and Joseph Finnegan giving good accounts of themselves for the visitors.
Monaghan were far more efficient with their kick-outs and strong on their opponents, which will be the foundation of any successful outcome for teams under the new rules.
The solo and go rule was rarely employed, both goalkeepers pressed high and indulged in a bit of jeopardy, while Antrim were punished a few times for breaching the three-up rule.
The eagle-eyed Monaghan substitutes in the stands shouted “two up… two up” to draw the match officials’ attention of Antrim transgressions.
Antrim boss Andy McEntee was visibly annoyed at some of these calls on the grounds that their three-up breaches were accidental and inconsequential.
“If the ball is over in the far corner of the field and a player steps over the halfway line by a foot, that’s not breaking the spirit of the law.
“Yet, there were a few given against us today – one particular incident was one of our players stepped over the line but he had no bearing on the game at that point. If he’s not interfering with play… there must be some common sense applied.”
Bannigan agreed with McEntee on some of the innocuous breaches of the three-up rule and how the punishment didn’t fit the alleged crime.
“I think that’s going to be something the referee will have to interpret where it’s accidental or where it’s deliberate,” said Bannigan.
“One of our players was going for a ball with an Antrim player and he accidentally went over the halfway line and it was taken up to the ‘13. I think that’s supposed to be a free from where it occurred, but these are the calls that referees have to make in the moment and are learning about the rules as much as we are.”
Afterwards, match official Christopher Brady reckoned his own GPS stats were up significantly under the new rules and wondered aloud - along with the rest of us, it must be said - on how things will pan out for the poor club ref who turns up for a match with only his whistle and cards for company.
Monaghan starting line-up: R Beggan; R Wylie, C Lennon, D Byrne; C McNulty, K Duffy, C McCarthy; J Wilson, G Mohan; R McAnespie, M Bannigan, S O’Hanlon; D Garland, A Woods, S Mooney
Antrim starting line-up: M Byrne; J Morgan, N Hynds, E Walsh; P McBride, J Finnegan, C Higgins; C Stewart, E Quinn; C Hand, M Jordan, D McAleese; R McQuillan, R McCann, F Nagle
Referee: Christopher Brady
