Score-fest in the Tyrone leagues

By Niall Gartland

JIM Gavin’s mission statement backboning his work as head honcho of the Football Rules Committee certainly wasn’t lacking in ambition – to make Gaelic Games the most enjoyable amateur sports in the world to watch and play.

To that end, Gaelic Football has been subject to a considerable transformation with a swathe of new rules enacted at both club and county level, nearly all of which are a dead cert to be made permanent at an upcoming Congress in October.

No fresh lick of paint here and no shortage of lateral thinking either – the new rules have the lot: two-pointers, hooters, the solo and go, the 3 v 3, and so on and so forth.

The intercounty season has come and gone so we already have a fair idea of how our game has changed – for better or worse (most would say better). In all the talk about a David Clifford masterclass and zonal defences and all the rest of it, one particular statistic didn’t get much of an airing in recent weeks – that Kerry’s 1-26 to 0-19 victory over Donegal was the highest scoring All-Ireland SFC final of all time with an aggregate 48 points (and if you account for the two-pointers, it would still be in a very, very respectable second place).

Of course, a plethora of scores doth not always a good game make – this isn’t basketball – but it’s certainly worth noting.

Something that hasn’t passed without mention is that the number of goals hasn’t really changed – there was only a slight rise from the 2024 provincial, All-Ireland and Tailteann Cup games, while some teams seemed perfectly content to prioritise two-pointers over goal-scoring opportunities.

Still, as an avid enough watcher of Tyrone Club Football, something has jumped out at me in recent weeks – the preponderance of goals.

Take the most recent round of Division One matches – across all eight games, there were a grand total of 35 goals, Trillick leading the way with six majors against Moortown, and Donaghmore not far behind plundering five goals against Galbally.

The total aggregate score across those matches was a gargantuan 35-230, a grand total of 335 points, (divide by 16 and that’s an average of 21.5 points per team.) A lot, basically.

It mightn’t be the most scientifically sound method in the world (I’m not about to go through every round since the start of the season) but I thought it would be instructive to rewind the clock to last year’s equivalent round in early August.

And guess what? It was like a different world. 10 goals in eight games. There were 170 points, so the sum total of 200 couldn’t be more contrasting from the festival of scores that characterised last weekend’s action.

It’s a similar enough story across the Divisions as well – in the latest round of Division Two action (and I’ll stop reeling off stats soon), there were a whopping 30 goals and 225 points (315 points in total).

There’s two questions coming out of all this – can you have too much of a good thing, and will priorities shift in the do-or-die world of the championship.

Well, time will tell, but I’m not sure it’ll be all that different (weather-permitting) and speaking personally, I don’t see the problem. Last Friday night, for instance, Clonoe and Moy locked swords in a crucially important top-of-the-table clash Division Two fixture and it was massively high-scoring, O’Rahilly maintaining their unbeaten run on a scoreline of 4-25 to 2-15. From a neutral point of view, it was great stuff – Moy forward Michael Conroy boomed over four two-pointers in the first-half, there were some cracking goals, and most importantly, there was no shortage of intensity, zip or bite.

Anyway, we live in interesting times. The game has changed dramatically and there’s probably no going back. In my book, that’s a good thing, though I can understand why not everyone is enamoured with the two-pointers and so on. It’s like anything though – those who adapt will prosper, and it sure helps if you have a free-scoring forward or two in your ranks.