This article is from page 68 of the 2011-12-20 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 68 JPG
THE game of football is not as we once knew it – that’s according to former Clare football selector of 25 years Noel Walsh who has said that if the number of consecutive handpasses is not curbed the game will have to be name changed to Gaelic Hand and Football.
The former chairman of the Munster Council, who was a Clare selector in the county’s Munster championship winning year of 1992, took his crusade to bring more foot passes back into the game to the floor of the annual Convention by way of a motion that’s now set to go forward to next year’s GAA Congress.
Walsh’s motion said: “When a team has completed three consecutive movements of the ball by hand or fist, the next move must be to kick the ball by foot”.
A similar motion from Ruan read: “The number of consecutive hand passes in Gaelic Football to be confined to a maximum of three. Penalty: – Free to the opposing side””
“There has been a considerable amount of discussion and negative talk about the amount of times in which the ball is being kicked – the lack of kicking,” said Walsh in putting forward his motion.
“We don’t want the handpass to be excluded at all, but we are allowing for three handpasses and then the ball has to be kicked.
“If it continues the way it’s going, as we saw in the All-Ireland semi-final (Dublin v Donegal) last year, there will have to be a proposal at some Convention asking for the game of Gaelic Football to be changed to Gaelic Hand and Football.
“This is because of the way it’s going – for every five deliveries of the ball by hand there is only one delivery by foot. We would hope that this motion will be on the Clár for Congress,” he added.