By Kevin McStay In the end Rule 42 took the road it skidded off in 2001. Better late than not to arrive at all but the closure on the hype and boring debate is nonetheless welcome. In retrospect, the vote simply had to favour the opening up of the famous old ground; can you imagine the fallout if it had gone otherwise? As usual, some delegates did not arrive; some went missing and believe it or not, with only two boxes to tick, one delegate spoiled his/her vote. A conscientious objector or an unconscious observer? The Yes vote cruised home despite the best efforts of Cork and Ulster. I got the sense that many disagreed with the Cork approach to democracy and while their stance must be respected, the manner in which they arrived at it was totally unacceptable. Once again, the watermarked, triplicate, Irish version of the rulebook was trotted out and quoted to put the underlings in place. Cork and Christy Cooney paid a high price for this strategy. In the follow up vote for the presidential office the clear favourite fell by the wayside. The Munster vote possibly wobbled and wanted to be associated with the YES side candidate. Connaught featured strongly in the discussions. Mayo could not decide pre Congress and it was a pity a motion framed by Sligo but essentially birthed by Roscommon, and finding support from all the Connaught neighbours, could not be supported by us. League gives hope The beginning of April generally signifies a change in the approach of footballers all over the country. Essentially the brain clicks from league to championship mode with the subsequent requirement to bring the body, kicking and screaming, onto a higher plain of fitness and attitude. The single calendar year of fixtures has helped somewhat in the annual fight against the flab but the problem with focus on the championship prize arises when you make the play-off stages of the NFL. Should I stay or should I go? Both of the football divisions produced semi-finalists who used the league to best advantage. This can range from the blooding of new players, the quest for some silverware or just a health check on the ambition of your team. New teams emerged once again with Monaghan and Wexford to the fore in this respect. Fermanagh, Meath and Derry let us know they have not gone away and Mayo alongside Armagh used it for some rehab. This leaves Tyrone as the one team left wondering where exactly it is they stand. A need for new players or more critically perhaps the return from foreign shores of some old warriors? Hard to know but for an ultra competitive side their defeat to Wexford will have hurt them. Mayo blew up again when the white heat began to burn and moved aside all too easily in their joust with Armagh. For the remainder, all will be happy enough - they head for May and June with something more than a hope rather than something less than a chance. This wraps the league nicely from their perspective - a mild success all round. Disciplinary systems or the lack thereof The poorly thought out new rules are no more and the best one applied - the mandatory tee - finds a new life as an optional variety. All others lie coldly in the grave with the much-criticised 'yellow card sending off' the first into the ground. The recent Congress was hugely disappointing when it came to analysis of the rules needed to tidy up matters on the playing field. The debate over Rule 42 and the election of a new president for 2006 seemed to kill whatever enthusiasm delegates had for the equally important discussion on the regulation of our games. The debate on yellow cards in general and the effort to remove serial offenders by use of cumulative totals met with defeat with the rather lame excuse of inability to administer at club level being forwarded. I have written many times before about the tactical fouling some teams engage in and the rotation of yellow cards among players especially when key attackers are in opposition. When you consider that the secretary of you local district soccer league can compile a spreadsheet based on referees reports you wonder why experienced officials in the GAA cannot do likewise. Do I need to mention some of these officials are full time paid employees? Anyway, why not bring it in for inter county action on a trial basis and leave the club to one side for now? The same argument about the use of timekeepers and their unavailability at all levels was used to hammer that effort. The fact remains that when it comes to matters of discipline we in the GAA do not have the real stomach for it. While the breaking up of the old GAC into two separate bodies-fixtures and disciplinary - is to be welcomed, surely each committee has some extra time on its hands now that the workload is halved? Time enough to count yellow cards and suspend the habitualists? No flies on some And to finish, a funny story that proves once again, all politics is local. You know the scenario where your club keeper has held the number one jersey for close on two decades and in the process displayed legendary prowess in the art of winning games for the home side. Which is all fine and dandy until he decides to retire having made more comebacks than Frank Sinatra. Now many of his teammates will be delighted but the problem for management is the conveyor belt will have stopped many years earlier. Young pretenders became old pretenders waiting for their chance and in the end retired before our own fella announced his. End result: no goalkeeper available for promotion. The best thing for it is the promotion of a corner back or forward who looks agile enough to protect the nets if only we could get him to lengthen the kick outs! Thus, Congress 2005 was watched by my own club with particular interest and the passing of the tee, as an optional extra, was music to our ears. The local sports shop has yet to pick up on this profit making opportunity so the manager goes hunting for the elusive 7-Up plastic bottle. Hand carving is his forte and for our next league match he produces a beautifully finished tee using the top end of the bottle. Kick-outs are boomers and land religiously on the head of the full forward; I hasten to add the number 14 rarely leaves the opposition square. What bliss! And then out of the blue arrives the opposition manager. Fresh from his day of fame with Rule 42, Tommy Kenoy informs the referee that while the rule was passed, it is not passed yet! If you know what I mean. Having arbitrated earlier on a point of enquiry and deemed it fine to use it, the referee, doubtlessly under pressure with the fine print of the regulation, decides to do an about turn and agree with Tommy! The man, who will be forever associated with an historical rule change, had argued that this new technical rule concerning the use of the tee 'was only law one (1) month after the Congress'!! The man in black agreed with him and Roscommon Gaels are back to square one for another few weeks. I imagine the mention of the 'one-month' is the biggest load of cobblers since, well, the last load of cobblers about our inability at club level to count yellow cards throughout a season, but still, you have to hand it to TK. So, move over Frank Murphy, there's a new kid in town. Tommy Kenoy is hereby nominated for Rules Interpreter of The Year. Tweet

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