The GAA’s annual congress will take in Cork on the weekend of April 17/18.  Most GAA followers will be watching keenly to see whether the so called “experimental yellow-card rules” in place for the league will be adopted by the wise men (and women) of the association.  In a nutshell, these rules mean that a player commiting a “highly disruptive” foul resulting in a yellow card gets the line and a sub comes on in his place.

While the term highly disruptive brings to mind a unruly teenager in a classroom, in the hurling world it means one of the following fouls:

1. To pull down an opponent.
2. To trip an opponent with the hand, foot or hurley.
3. To deliberately body collide with an opponent after he has played the ball away.
4. To being an arm or hurley around the neck of an opponent.
5. To remonstrate in an aggressive manner with an official.
6. To use the hurley in a careless manner.

Originally there was a seventh foul - to wrestle with an opponent on the ground or away from play - however it was downgraded to a black book offence.  Sure what’s the harm in a bit of wrestling

To be adopted into the rule book, they need a two thirds majority - always a big ask in any vote (except in dictatorships).  However it is not a case of all or nothing.  There is one overall motion (motion number one, as it happens) which deals with the idea as a whole; if that is voted down, then the rules are history.  If motion number one is adopted then there will be a vote on each of the fouls.  This is a good idea as the rules had very little chance of being adopted in full (imho).

’twill be interesting to see what happens.  Personally I would be in favour of the rules for the most part.  I think they benefit teams who want to play hurling rather than indulge in cynical tactics.  One example of where they punish cynical fouls was the recent Galway v Kilkenny league match.  Richie Power caught a ball in the square and was pulled to the ground by Ciaran O’Donovan, the Galway full back.  The ref gave penalty which Galway saved.  Under the old rules, the advantage would have been to Galway as they got the morale boost of saving a penalty; under the experimental rules, O’Donovan was yellow carded and had to go off.  Thus advantage Kilkenny as Galway lost their first choice full back (not that Kilkenny need any extra advantage right now).

However, as usual, consistency of implementation is what’s needed.  I think some referees are “bottling it” by showing the black book when a yellow was merited. I think this is because there is extra pressure on referees to get it right when yellow carding someone because that player has no comeback - he is set for an early shower. Some people have argued that this system favours teams with stronger panels - but that has been the case since the number of subs was increased from 3 to 5.

FaceTheBall.com update:

I had another good weekend on the prediction front scoring a respectable 151 points.  As a result I moved up from 56th position to 21st position.  I’m still 80 points behind the leader (now a character called googlehanley).  As there are only 9 matches left (one round of the league left plus the final) I’m too far adrift to catch the leaders - but it would be satisfying to sneak into the top 10.