COMMENT: Maybe it’s time to call in Jim to sort it out, again

Kerry, Mayo Louth and Dublin, the last four standing after another brilliant weekend of top class championship football action in Croke Park on Saturday and Sunday last weekend.

Who, if anyone, could have predicted the four semi-finalists?

Having said that, it has been a championship like no other.

Great crowds, some brilliant football, thrills and spills aplenty.

No shortage of shocks and no shortage of upsets along the way.

Good God even, Donal Óg must be getting close to becoming a fan of Gaelic Football?

Well, maybe not. As that wise old tale goes: You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink it.

Still, who could, or would, have predicted that a few short years ago the game of football would have been transformed from a boring, hard to look at game, to what we have today.

Apart from Jim, of course.

And who appointed Jim to the role of Chairman of the New Rules?

Most folk would automatically say Jarlath Burns.

Well, not quite.

It was Larry the Lad, aka Larry McCarthy, the Cork native and university lecturer, who moved to the US, got heavily involved with New York GAA going on to become the first overseas President of the GAA from 2021 to 2024, and it was he who appointed Jarlath Burns to the role of Chairman of the Standing Committee on Playing Rules.

However when Jarlath Burns succeeded Larry The Lad as the 41st President in 2024, he (the bauld Jarlath) then appointed former Dublin boss, army man, Air Corps pilot, and one time presidential candidate for The Áras, to chair the Football Review Committee (FRC), to review and introduce sweeping new rules to the game of football.

And what a job Jim, not forgetting his committee, has done.

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The game as we knew it, is hardly recognisable from the pre-FRC days.

And is the FRC’s work done and dusted at this stage?

Possibly not. There may still be a few tweaks needed.

Probably the one rule that causes a lot of hassle, and even resentment, is the handing over of the ball to an opponent after a foul has been committed.

The main reason for that particular rule was to improve discipline.

And in that regard it has probably worked.

However the punishment when the ball is not handed over looks very harsh. Just look back at the All-Ireland clash between Dublin and Donegal in Round 3 of the All-Ireland Series.

The ball was handled on the ground but instead of picking up the ball and handing it to an opponent one of the Boys in Blue, left the leather on the lush surface; the foul was called, the ball brought forward to just outside the ‘arc’ and Michael Murphy did the rest ensuring extra time.

We also saw it a few times in various provincial and All-Ireland club games, the one that stands out was the game between Sallins and An Ghaeltacht of Kerry that saw the boys from the Kingdom snatch victory from the jaws of defeat; something, if memory serves me correct, happened in the Munster Club final in which the Kerry boys were the beneficiaries of that particular rule also.

Very tough, no doubt, but as Jim might say, it is all part of the discipline he and his committee were/are attempting to improve in the game.

Of course, apart from the new rules in football there are a few other aspects of the modern day GAA that cause a lot of debate, discussion and yes, even anger.

Two, in particular spring to mind here.

The first being the cramped season; the second the TV coverage, especially since games were put behind the pay-wall.

Now you can argue that the pay-wall is the way forward. But is it?

First things first: The cramped season.

One of the main ‘pushers’ behind the introduction of the cramped season was the Gaelic Players Association (GPA). But that begs the question, who is affected most by the cramped season? The players. Inter-county players at that. The very folk that the GPA represents.

Such is the intensity and the regularity of games these days, that a player who picks up any kind of a serious injury, their season is more or less over and done with.

A hamstring injury? Forget it. Just ask Kildare footballers.

Collectively they must have picked up more hamstring injuries than any two or three counties put together; there may be a reason for that but that’s for another day.

Really there should be a long hard look taken at fixtures, it is bordering on the farcical, practically week-in and week-out, it is pure folly.

Where does the infamous Player Welfare that we hear the GPA go on about come into play on this?

The other topic of course that causes a lot of discussion is live TV; or to be more accurate live TV games behind a pay-wall.

No doubt the GAA+ channel has become a major cash-cow. And remember when games behind the pay-wall were first introduced it was to facilitate the natives who have left these shores, whether across The Pond, Down Under, the US or wherever, but once the GAA realised that was big spondulicks to be made they got rid of Sky and took complete control.

I wonder how long will it take before the GPA come calling for a bigger slice of the cake from GAA+ games? Not long I suggest, and then the sport will start.

Maybe the time is right for Jarlath to ask Jim and his boys to take a look at fixtures and live TV games. It could be renamed the FF&TVRC (Football, Fixtures & TV Review Committee).

If anyone can fix it, Jim can!