KEVIN CASSIDY: A sense of Christmas cheer

LOOKING ahead to 2025, I feel, we as Gaels, have an awful lot to look forward to.

Much has been said and written about the introduction of the new rules, but I must say it’s great to be looking forward to them.

Over the last number of weeks, I have spoken to people involved with both coaching and playing at all levels and the one common theme shines through.

“Cass, we are all starting at the beginning here. It’s just like we are fresh out of college heading into a new job,” is what I’m hearing.

That rawness and enthusiasm that we will all have come the start of January will do wonders for our game.

I have been involved with my wee team since they were u-6 they are now entering the u-12 grade this year.

For that age group, we have a wonderful management group, all of them with their own area of expertise and knowledge I might add.

We have past players who played at a high level, coaches who have had success before and school principals who add a wealth of experience from that side of things.

All of the people involved have played the game and they all have a very clear understanding of how they want the game played.

We have been lucky in the face that our team hadn’t been poisoned yet by this defensive scourge that ruined our game.

Luckily all our boys have been doing is playing games for the fun of it and learning the basic skills as best they could.

We are blessed that as they now move up the ranks we can stick to those principles and keep just playing pure football with them.

As a coach, I am really excited by that prospect. To be 100 per cent honest with you, had the game remained as it was then once our wee group hit the u-16 age, then I would have probably walked away.

The need for negative tactics after that age group just would not appeal to me. All of our management team are excited about getting back after the new year to see what these rules look like for us.

I have said here on a number of occasions about how I went to watch underage games in the past in Donegal and I left with a sick feeling in my stomach.

For the life of me, I just could not understand how any coach or manager could restrict their players from expressing themselves by playing that utter nonsense of over and back the pitch that we used to see.

Moving forward, these underage games should be more enjoyable for both the players and spectators.

While all this change is fantastic. the one criticism I would have is for the lack of information for clubs around all of this.

Clubs should be well informed about all of these changes and how they apply to each grade.

I understand a lot has happened in recent weeks around this. Hopefully, early in the new year, clubs will be more informed.

At the end of the day, without the clubs you don’t have a county team so they should not be prioritised. Here’s looking forward to a fun filled 2025 on the playing fields.