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Should The Sloithar Be Redesigned

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Replying To bloodyban: "The ball definitely needs about 25% more weight or mass to prevent it travelling so far. Hurling is getting boring at this stage . Puck out and shot is the 1-2 strategy of everyone now. There needs to be abit more play in the middle.. With frees it would be easy to make every free out side the 65 yard line indirect. That would encourage faster play and even ground hurling to restart deom a free quicker." I have said it here before and say it again. The handpass in hurling is too easy, becoming much too frequent, is indefensible by tackle and permits swift movement of the ball into free space. Reduce the number of consecutive hand passes to one and the ball will say in play longer and look a lot better. Im not a fan of punishing players for doing great things like putting the ball over the bar from 100 metres and at the same time allowing the handpass to flourish. Handpass rules didnt work in football but i could easily see it work in hurling. ZUL10 (Clare) - Posts: 693 - 02/08/2020 21:51:14 2286169 Link
Replying To LondainBhoy: "It seems strange to say but even though the game is much more high scoring now, there is possibly less attacking play at either end of the field as points can be taken from so far. Indirect frees not a bad shout at all, I like that idea. Not sure about more weight on the ball though, they should definitely be standardised, if they're not already, but making them heavier isn't the answer. Not sure we want a return to ground hurling do we? If we take off the rose tinted specs, the standard has never been higher, fellas slashing away at it on the ground and giving the ball away isn't going to make it a better game." I agree aimlessly pulling on a ball is not enjoyable to watch. However watching 5 or 6 lads on top of each other with the ball stuck between their feet is worse. Then to compound the problem the ref stops play and throws it back into the scrum. This happens numerous times in every game. Ground hurling wasn't great but at least the ball was in play and always moving. gatha (Kilkenny) - Posts: 318 - 03/08/2020 00:52:26 2286182 Link
Replying To gatha: "I agree aimlessly pulling on a ball is not enjoyable to watch. However watching 5 or 6 lads on top of each other with the ball stuck between their feet is worse. Then to compound the problem the ref stops play and throws it back into the scrum. This happens numerous times in every game. Ground hurling wasn't great but at least the ball was in play and always moving." Gatha I can never get that. Stopping a scrum and then throwing back in among 10 players to cause another scrum. Not one for wanting change for the sake of change but these scrums are horrible. To stop this give an indirect free when a third man comes in. Everyone is going to say too hard to administrate. No it is not. If one of the two players is a meter away from the ball or play he is not interfering and another player can challenge and no we don't need a measuring tape either just some common sense with who is in the play or not. Players will smarten up quickly and not rush in where two players are contesting a ball. So what if the ref gets a few wrong the deterrent will be there. With regards ground hurling there is nothing more exciting that a forward pulling first time on a ball in the square and rattling the net. That is not to say it is always the best play either. Watching club games at the weekend there were players running all over the place with the ball in their hand. Is that what we are calling as the game better today? The game IS better than ever (other reasons) but the way to keep that is when you see trends that may make the game deteriorate, adjust. If you only do what you did yesterday you will fail. If you only do what you are doing today you will fail. If you do what is required for tomorrow you will succeed. Not loosing site of the topic. The sliotar is not the problem. Yes there needs to be regulation of it but more important regulation of the planks used to hit it. If you are caught using an out of specification stick off you go. Canuck (Waterford) - Posts: 2655 - 03/08/2020 17:40:28 2286237 Link
Replying To zinny: "When I say hurling crowd I mean the people who go on about Hurling as if it was the same game that was played 50 years ago, that its all manly stuff and team just go out there and let fly. They are the same people who will put down football for been all about running and possession and has lost its way because there is not enough kicking whereas Hurling is still pure. Whether of not it is better gone from the game is debatable, it was never that random where the ball would end up anyway and it made for more individual battles in the game. However the arguments you have put forward are exactly the same for possession Football but yet there are constant changes in Football to try and curb it - the question is why? Both games are different now to what they were before but I am not sure any supporter who could bridge that time period can say that given two points in time a game was better that the other as your expectations of how good that game is, is at that point in time." Hurling has evolved, overall improved as a spectical in most aspects. The way it has evolved, for the most part been in line with the character of the sport. I find it hard to say the same about football. The overall spectical of football has disimproved as it has evolved over modern times. Yes some of the point taking has improved from years gone by. Yes the players are much better prepared and are fitter and stronger. But the amount of repetitive shot hand passes makes it less exciting to watch. Short repetitive hand passing to a free man takes almost zero skill to execute, slows down the game and makes it less exciting for players and spectators. The further away from elite level you go the worse the impact of these trends are for the spectical of the game. bdbuddah (Meath) - Posts: 1337 - 03/08/2020 18:59:19 2286245 Link
I think the sloithar should be left the same. What I would change is any free inside your own 65 has to be indirect and maybe taken by the person that was fouled something like that. This will quicken up play. Definitely think either reduce handpass to one or eliminate altogether for a trial would be interesting. But in fairness with being only allowed 4 or 6 steps and only 2 catches makes possession very difficult in hurling and high risk. I fairness Dublin v Galway last year Nolan the dublin goal keeper ran out pass the 21 and took a pass and drove over a fantastic point which was amazing as I thought Galway had all bases covered. so with long range point taking there is so many ways to attack in hurling. In football no danger anything over 45 meters so by making the ball travel less you will only have more rucks imop. ecad123 (Galway) - Posts: 272 - 03/08/2020 23:44:13 2286266 Link
Replying To ecad123: "I think the sloithar should be left the same. What I would change is any free inside your own 65 has to be indirect and maybe taken by the person that was fouled something like that. This will quicken up play. Definitely think either reduce handpass to one or eliminate altogether for a trial would be interesting. But in fairness with being only allowed 4 or 6 steps and only 2 catches makes possession very difficult in hurling and high risk. I fairness Dublin v Galway last year Nolan the dublin goal keeper ran out pass the 21 and took a pass and drove over a fantastic point which was amazing as I thought Galway had all bases covered. so with long range point taking there is so many ways to attack in hurling. In football no danger anything over 45 meters so by making the ball travel less you will only have more rucks imop." indirect frees would just promote fouling..the more long range frees that are scored the better as it may stop forwards fouling wishfulthinkin (Cavan) - Posts: 1678 - 04/08/2020 00:54:54 2286271 Link
Replying To ecad123: "I think the sloithar should be left the same. What I would change is any free inside your own 65 has to be indirect and maybe taken by the person that was fouled something like that. This will quicken up play. Definitely think either reduce handpass to one or eliminate altogether for a trial would be interesting. But in fairness with being only allowed 4 or 6 steps and only 2 catches makes possession very difficult in hurling and high risk. I fairness Dublin v Galway last year Nolan the dublin goal keeper ran out pass the 21 and took a pass and drove over a fantastic point which was amazing as I thought Galway had all bases covered. so with long range point taking there is so many ways to attack in hurling. In football no danger anything over 45 meters so by making the ball travel less you will only have more rucks imop." I think it would be interesting to try the thing about the fouled player taking the free especially with penalties but I suggested it before and someone pointed out to me that making frees harder or less of a reward will increase fouling. Could you imagine the beating some poor fella would get if the opposition knew he was poor at free taking Breezy (Limerick) - Posts: 1236 - 04/08/2020 08:59:07 2286276 Link
Replying To Canuck: "Gatha I can never get that. Stopping a scrum and then throwing back in among 10 players to cause another scrum. Not one for wanting change for the sake of change but these scrums are horrible. To stop this give an indirect free when a third man comes in. Everyone is going to say too hard to administrate. No it is not. If one of the two players is a meter away from the ball or play he is not interfering and another player can challenge and no we don't need a measuring tape either just some common sense with who is in the play or not. Players will smarten up quickly and not rush in where two players are contesting a ball. So what if the ref gets a few wrong the deterrent will be there. With regards ground hurling there is nothing more exciting that a forward pulling first time on a ball in the square and rattling the net. That is not to say it is always the best play either. Watching club games at the weekend there were players running all over the place with the ball in their hand. Is that what we are calling as the game better today? The game IS better than ever (other reasons) but the way to keep that is when you see trends that may make the game deteriorate, adjust. If you only do what you did yesterday you will fail. If you only do what you are doing today you will fail. If you do what is required for tomorrow you will succeed. Not loosing site of the topic. The sliotar is not the problem. Yes there needs to be regulation of it but more important regulation of the planks used to hit it. If you are caught using an out of specification stick off you go." Just enforce the actual rule that "all players, except those contesting the throw in, shall not be nearer than 13m before the throw-in is made". There is no need for subjective "interfering with play" considerations. The practice of half of both teams breaching this rule is completely indoctrinated into the current play (hurling and football) but a mandate to refs to enforce this accompanied by an announcement at the start of the season that refs will be clamping down on this as well as early enforcement in a few senior games should sort this out. Kurt_Angle (Dublin) - Posts: 567 - 04/08/2020 10:17:13 2286289 Link
Everyone seems to agree that scrums are a big problem, so how do we eliminate or reduce them? Most games start with a scrum at the throw in - why? Because players who are supposed to be inside the 65 converge on the four midfielders as soon as (or before) the ball is thrown in. Why not insist on all players (other than four midfielders) being inside the 45, as in football? Of course players will still try to encroach but it would be much easier to spot infringements. The root cause of the scrum is the apparent obsession with getting the ball into the hand. This, in my view, reduces the level of skill in the game. Nine times out of ten, the player in possession will either (a) handpass or throw the ball to a colleague or (b) charge forward in the hope of winning a free, which will invariably produce a point for his team. Playing for a free used to be a common tactic in football, but it is now an integral part of hurling, and there is little a defender can do when a player in possession runs at him. Even if he can manage to stop the attacker without fouling him, the attacker can handpass (throw?) the ball to a colleague. Thus, taking the ball into contact, which used to be discouraged, now presents the defender with an almost impossible problem. I accept that skill levels in today's game are higher than ever, but I'm not convinced that our game is more enjoyable to look at as a result. The media may go into ecstasies if a match ends 0-28 to 1-22, without bothering to point out that 40 of the 50 points came from frees. That's a lot of stoppages, and a lot of time wasted when taking into account that today's player takes much more time over his free-taking. It's wrong to suggest that ground hurling is aimless. One of the most skillful teams I've seen was Offaly in the 1980s and 1990s, who used ground hurling to the benefit of their forwards. As one who spent almost my entire (modest) career as a corner forward, I always appreciated that the fast low ball gave the best opportunity to get the better of the defender. The 15 stone full forward might prefer the slow high delivery but he would be in the minority. Maybe our sliotar is too light, maybe we need to standardise our hurleys, but there is much more we can do to make hurling a better spectacle. To sum up, we could eliminate the scrums at the throw in, be more vigilant in punishing illegal handpasses (not easy, I admit) and encourage referees to be less sympathetic to the player in possession when he is clearly trying to buy a free. Consistent implementation of the four steps rule would also help. midlands (Westmeath) - Posts: 541 - 04/08/2020 10:35:27 2286295 Link
Replying To Breezy: "I think it would be interesting to try the thing about the fouled player taking the free especially with penalties but I suggested it before and someone pointed out to me that making frees harder or less of a reward will increase fouling. Could you imagine the beating some poor fella would get if the opposition knew he was poor at free taking" A fair point but one reason why a player might be poor at free taking is because he never practices it. If the rule as you suggest was brought in, every player would have to practice taking frees and their execution of it would improve with practice in the majority of cases. PoolSturgeon (Galway) - Posts: 1902 - 04/08/2020 10:51:35 2286302 Link
Replying To Breezy: "I think it would be interesting to try the thing about the fouled player taking the free especially with penalties but I suggested it before and someone pointed out to me that making frees harder or less of a reward will increase fouling. Could you imagine the beating some poor fella would get if the opposition knew he was poor at free taking" I use to agree with you but, I have watched a lot of basketball where the person fouled takes the shots. When there is a poor foul shooter the other team targets that player at the end of games and fouled, betting he will miss the shots. Free taking is a skill just because you practice it doesn't mean you will be great at it. A foul should be penalized to the max that is the only way to stop fouling. Having said that the ball goes too far and 65 and fouls 100m away should not be automatic scores. A bit of a contradiction but it makes sense to me. gatha (Kilkenny) - Posts: 318 - 04/08/2020 12:32:44 2286317 Link
The only thing is that with the amount of analysis and statistics being done by teams, coaches and players would figure ways around it. Bon (Kildare) - Posts: 1898 - 04/08/2020 13:09:05 2286326 Link
Replying To Kurt_Angle: "Just enforce the actual rule that "all players, except those contesting the throw in, shall not be nearer than 13m before the throw-in is made". There is no need for subjective "interfering with play" considerations. The practice of half of both teams breaching this rule is completely indoctrinated into the current play (hurling and football) but a mandate to refs to enforce this accompanied by an announcement at the start of the season that refs will be clamping down on this as well as early enforcement in a few senior games should sort this out." The start of the game is a joke, I am not sure why there are rules around it anymore. The problem is that do you trust the ref to spot it? if you let your man go and its not spotted then you have given them the advantage, if you go with him as both of you are breaking the rule its just another throw in. Increase the 13M to 20M and the referee stop the game until they conform (should be added time at the end) and as you say give the free against the player over the line. Thing is the ref would need eyes in the back of his head to see it all but if he only catches a few it would work as now lads know they run a risk. It seems to be all the rage at the moment to get the game moving as quickly as possible so the ref ignores the rules but if he applies the rules he gets slated by everyone for slowing down the game. zinny (Wexford) - Posts: 1799 - 04/08/2020 13:28:08 2286331 Link
Some good points above. A real problem is how long every stoppage takes. I only said to somebody at the weekend that when we were losing to the team we were playing, they brought out their goalkeeper to take frees. When we were winning, the centre back had no problem taking them. I was fouled at 1 stage and there was an overlap for a man inside. I think the player fouled should have the option of an indirect shot out of the hand. Can't score, but it is 1 option to speed up the match. Every free is now a 60 second + circus and some teams have the ability to time waste as part of this to a tee. StoreysTash (Wexford) - Posts: 1732 - 04/08/2020 13:30:23 2286332 Link
Replying To StoreysTash: "Some good points above. A real problem is how long every stoppage takes. I only said to somebody at the weekend that when we were losing to the team we were playing, they brought out their goalkeeper to take frees. When we were winning, the centre back had no problem taking them. I was fouled at 1 stage and there was an overlap for a man inside. I think the player fouled should have the option of an indirect shot out of the hand. Can't score, but it is 1 option to speed up the match. Every free is now a 60 second + circus and some teams have the ability to time waste as part of this to a tee." I have said it before put the games back to 60 minutes with a time clock and hooter. The clock is only running when the ball is in play. Takes out all the controversy over time keeping. The game ends when the hooter goes. The argument that you do not know how long a game will take is nonsense. Games will be within 5 or 10 minutes of each other except there is a serious injury that can occur now anyway. Goaltender, free taker etc. gets a yellow card if delaying game. That is the only time the ref needs to keep. Canuck (Waterford) - Posts: 2655 - 04/08/2020 14:21:43 2286338 Link
Replying To Kurt_Angle: "Just enforce the actual rule that "all players, except those contesting the throw in, shall not be nearer than 13m before the throw-in is made". There is no need for subjective "interfering with play" considerations. The practice of half of both teams breaching this rule is completely indoctrinated into the current play (hurling and football) but a mandate to refs to enforce this accompanied by an announcement at the start of the season that refs will be clamping down on this as well as early enforcement in a few senior games should sort this out." That does not stop the rucks during play. There is absolutely nothing subjective about interfering with play. Like six other players running in when two players are contesting and scrambling like chickens for a ball on the ground that ends up with the ball tossed into another ruck. I agree with you many of the existing rules are not enforced like steps with the ball in hand. However this is also a symptom of the rucks as the player can not swing his stick or even lift his hand to hand pass because of been bottled up by 10 other players. Canuck (Waterford) - Posts: 2655 - 04/08/2020 14:30:14 2286341 Link
Replying To StoreysTash: "Some good points above. A real problem is how long every stoppage takes. I only said to somebody at the weekend that when we were losing to the team we were playing, they brought out their goalkeeper to take frees. When we were winning, the centre back had no problem taking them. I was fouled at 1 stage and there was an overlap for a man inside. I think the player fouled should have the option of an indirect shot out of the hand. Can't score, but it is 1 option to speed up the match. Every free is now a 60 second + circus and some teams have the ability to time waste as part of this to a tee." I have said it before put the games back to 60 minutes with a time clock and hooter. The clock is only running when the ball is in play. Takes out all the controversy over time keeping. The game ends when the hooter goes. The argument that you do not know how long a game will take is nonsense. Games will be within 5 or 10 minutes of each other except there is a serious injury that can occur now anyway. Goaltender, free taker etc. gets a yellow card if delaying game. That is the only time the ref needs to keep. Canuck (Waterford) - Posts: 2655 - 04/08/2020 14:30:45 2286342 Link
Replying To Canuck: "I have said it before put the games back to 60 minutes with a time clock and hooter. The clock is only running when the ball is in play. Takes out all the controversy over time keeping. The game ends when the hooter goes. The argument that you do not know how long a game will take is nonsense. Games will be within 5 or 10 minutes of each other except there is a serious injury that can occur now anyway. Goaltender, free taker etc. gets a yellow card if delaying game. That is the only time the ref needs to keep." But how do you do that at club level, the referee is already under enough pressure? StoreysTash (Wexford) - Posts: 1732 - 04/08/2020 15:15:05 2286348 Link
Replying To Canuck: "That does not stop the rucks during play. There is absolutely nothing subjective about interfering with play. Like six other players running in when two players are contesting and scrambling like chickens for a ball on the ground that ends up with the ball tossed into another ruck. I agree with you many of the existing rules are not enforced like steps with the ball in hand. However this is also a symptom of the rucks as the player can not swing his stick or even lift his hand to hand pass because of been bottled up by 10 other players." No, the 13m rule doesn't apply from open play, for obvious reasons, and has no bearing on such rucks. However, I'd disagree in relation to the subjectivity of interfering with play and would say reffing this would be entirely down to individual interpretation to the point where consistency would be impossible. Similarly, how would you phrase the rules in this regard? When would a third player become entitled to go for the ball? How would you designate the two players who are challenging for a ball when it breaks among several? I don't see the ruck as that big a deal as I would argue that in the majority of cases (at least more than half), a player will get the ball in hand and there's no requirement to throw it in. If there is a requirement to throw it in, just apply the 13m rule like the ref is supposed to.. Kurt_Angle (Dublin) - Posts: 567 - 04/08/2020 18:15:19 2286366 Link
Replying To wishfulthinkin: "indirect frees would just promote fouling..the more long range frees that are scored the better as it may stop forwards fouling" I completely agree with your point here, was reading through the posts and thought about indirect frees and then immediately discounted it because of it promoting fouling. A suitable punishment for a foul is to concede a score and if you think you'll cocede then you'll be much less inclined to foul. This will be especially true closer to the opposition's goal line. Ulsterchamps_32 (Donegal) - Posts: 687 - 04/08/2020 23:37:04 2286399 Link