JOHNNY MCINTOSH: The new rule changes are badly needed

First of all, I want to express my condolences to the family of Benny Ward from Lavey.

Benny was a half-back on the Derry teams that won Ulster titles in 2001 and 2002. I played against him at university and again at county level, and he was a really good player. He also did a huge amount of work with the Derry development squads over the years.

He was a really good fella, and I just wanted to mention that before getting into the main topic this week.

And that topic is the new rules coming into hurling.

I’ve heard plenty of people criticising them and, to be honest, I think the new rules are trying to take us back towards the game we had in the 1990s and early 2000s. Personally, I think that’s a good thing.

The game has become a running game. It’s become handpass, handpass, run, run, run. Obviously, there are people who will say we don’t need any changes, but personally, I think they are needed.

The first one is that once you receive a handpass, you can’t handpass it back. To me, that means once you catch the ball, you’re going to have to move it directly. I imagine what they’re trying to do is encourage players to move the ball immediately up the field, rather than having those constant give-and-goes.

I see that as a benefit to the game. We need to create a wee bit of chaos and randomness again. That has almost been washed out of the game. It has become too controlled, too measured, too sterile.

Look, the game is still fantastic in many ways, but to me, I think this might bring us back towards the game we had 20 years ago.

The rule requiring goalkeepers to puck the ball beyond the 45-metre line is another one I like. I think it’ll cut out the tedium of goalkeepers hitting the ball short to a corner-back who is standing free all the time. It’s going to force goalkeepers to go long, which adds another element to the game because players are going to have to compete for ball from distance.

The clear handpass rule is also going to be reinforced. It has to be a clear handpass rather than a throw, while the number of steps with the ball in hand is being increased from four to six. That’s pretty much what players are doing already, but it’ll make it more exciting for forwards who have ambitions to run at their man.

Then there’s the 65. A 65 is no longer taken from the 65-metre line; it has to be struck from the opposition 65, essentially making it an 85-metre shot.

I think that’s just a reflection of how much the game has changed. Back in the late 1990s, there were maybe 10 players in Ireland who could regularly hit 65s. Now you could go to an U14 game and see players regularly tapping them over. The game itself hasn’t changed that much in that respect – it’s still your big stars who are able to hit them – but the number of younger players capable of doing it has certainly increased.

I think all of these rules are designed to bring a bit of variation back into the game.

I know there’s been a bit of grumbling about the two-point sideline cut. People are saying it’s going to encourage individualism, but again, I think it’s exciting. People grumbled about the two-pointer in football as well, and I think it has made an amazing impact.

Football is a far better spectacle than it was. I was at the Clann Eireann-Crossmaglen match at the Athletic Grounds last weekend. What a game! Clann Eireann were 13 points up at half-time and Crossmaglen came back and just shot the lights out. It was unbelievable. They hit about eight two-pointers in the second half.

If that had been football three years ago, it would have been dour. The game would probably have been over at half-time. Clann Eireann would have run down the clock, and understandably so, but the new rules have stopped that.

Times are changing, and maybe in years to come people will look back and say that now is the golden era of hurling. Maybe I’m being romantic when I talk about a golden era in the 1990s and early 2000s.

But I do think these new rules will bring a little bit more haphazardness into the game. They could also give the smaller counties a better chance of upsetting the big counties.

Is it a coincidence that we’ve changed the football rules and Mayo have won their first All-Ireland final in 75 years?

I’m not saying the new rules mean Antrim are going to win the All-Ireland, but maybe they might suit a Dublin, a Wexford or a Waterford. To me, that’s badly needed.

As much as hurling is an incredible sport that we all love, at the same time we have to evolve. Fair play to Willie Maher and his team. I don’t see anything stupid in the new rules.

People will grumble. They’ll say, ‘It’s our game’ and all the rest of it. But football, I don’t care what anyone says, is a better game than it was two or three years ago.

To me, hurling was getting to a worrying stage where you could have had a corner-back play a whole game without striking the ball. He ran, handpassed, took it back – it was almost becoming like football. I think striking has to become something that is rewarded.

Finally, I want to wish my own club, Glenariff, all the best in their upcoming Senior Championship semi-final against Dunloy on Saturday night.

It’s a really exciting time for ourselves. I think we’re 15/2 outsiders and Dunloy are 1/20, so we’re certainly going into it as underdogs. But at the same time, we probably thought the same when we went in to play the holders, St John’s, last weekend – and we were very good.

There’s a good buzz about the town and it’s brilliant to see a bit of a change to the semi-final line-up. I know that’s something I’ve complained about in previous columns.

Now we have a chance to make the most of it ourselves.