Handling the hand pass

As the FRC try out new potential handpass rules in the off-season, Shaun Casey chats to Gerard O’Kane about their necessity

AFTER a full inter-county season, and with the club championship now underway in most counties, the ‘new rules’ brought in by the Football Review Committee at the start of the year have all been tried and tested.

There were a few tweaks here and there, which irked a couple of managers, but by and large they have been a roaring success. The rule enhancements have breathed new life into the game, when in truth, it was growing quite stale.

Some of the inter-county games throughout the year were all-time classics. There were memorable moments from almost all of the matches and even a few shocks, which were few and far between under the old rules.

Jim Gavin and the FRC are still searching for perfection however and rules on restricting the handpass have been discussed since the end of the inter-county season. Former Derry defender Gerard O’Kane doesn’t see the handpass as a blight on the game that some do.

For all the good the FRC has done up to this point, the handpass issue is one that still raises its head. Teams have been coached for more than a decade that possession is king and to not part with the ball and give away turnovers.

The easiest way to do that? First pass the ball to a teammate. Don’t kick it. Don’t give up cheap possession. That’s been the setup at the top level, and it has filtered down to the club game where the basic skills and fitness levels simply aren’t as good.a

The FRC are looking at a ‘no back pass’ or ‘over and back’ rule, meaning a player can’t go back into their defensive half after crossing halfway. That pretty much means when the attacking team crosses the halfway line, they can’t go back over it.

That didn’t happen too much this year, although the Leinster final does stick out. With Louth winning heading towards the final few minutes, they played keep ball, using the entire field to deny Meath possession and a chance to steal the game.

Donegal did likewise in extra-time of the Ulster final when they hold on to the ball and held on to their one-point lead to keep their grip on the Anglo Celt, with Armagh once again suffering at the hands of the Tir Chonaill men.

The former Oak Leaf captain recalls a similar experiment taking place during his playing days, when consecutive handpasses were restricted. He felt it didn’t work back then and believes it won’t work now.

“I don’t think it’s necessary,” said the Glenullin clubman. “I definitely played in a league campaign; I think it was around ’04 or ’05 when Mickey Moran was over Derry, and there was a four-hand pass rule in place at that time.

“That’s 20 years ago and now we’re going back around in circles to it. I can remember the confusion it caused at the time with people shouting and counting whenever handpasses were being made and it was just a bit ridiculous to be honest.”

The cream always rises to the top and Kerry were convincing All-Ireland winners this year. Their path to Sam looked a difficult one in terms of opponents but they swept aside Armagh, Tyrone and Donegal without breaking much of a sweat.

The new rules, which aren’t really that new anymore, certainly suits Kerry’s style of play and the space that it allows for the likes of David Clifford, Paudie Clifford and Sean O’Shea makes the Kingdoms attack increasing difficult to tie down.

But there was one glaring statistic that emerged from the All-Ireland final. There were almost 500 handpasses throughout the 70 minutes of action and as Kerry legend Pat Spillane highlighted afterward, five Kerry played didn’t kick the ball.

Handpassing isn’t a huge issue, O’Kane states, and for two reasons. He wouldn’t support implementing a new rule to reduce the skill. O’Kane points to a goal scored by Galway club Corofin a number of years ago that demonstrated how the through-the-hands game can be so effective.

He also believes that given the teams and coaches are only after experiencing a huge change to the playing rules of Gaelic football, adding in another adjustment “would just be asking for too much”.

“They usually show an example of a Corofin goal at Croke Park when they won three-in-a-row All-Irelands and there was a real slick handpass move that cut through the defence and there was a fist in at the back post,” said O’Kane.

“That’s the Holy Grail for movement off the ball and angled runs and all that type of stuff but I think, off the back of the new rules and the year we’ve just had, another massive change fired in would just be asking for too much.”