I finished the final column of 2009 by asking you to consider the manner in which Gaelic football has allowed a situation to develop whereby it now pays to foul.

I focussed exclusively on penalty taking. With the psychological pressure that often surrounds their execution it must now be considered part art, part skill but there can be NO debate with the statistics and I reproduce them below, again, to help re-ignite the debate.

The evidence then: 14 penalties were awarded in the 2009 championship and 9 goals were scored (total of 27 points), giving a return of 1.93 points per kick when the expectation should be much closer to 3 points. The previous year was worse: in 2008 referees blew for 16 penalties but they yielded 9 goals and 1 point (28 points in total), for an average of 1.75 points per kick. Irrefutable evidence then that it does pay to foul.

No sooner had the ink dried on the column but we get an announcement from Croke Park that experimental rules will be tried in the 2010 NFLs. Some prominent managers hit the headlines complaining about this development and I must say their reaction really puzzles me.

Stagnation in the manner in which a game develops is just unacceptable and it is reasonable to suggest that the rule changes of the past twenty years or so (frees from the hand, sideline kicks from the hand, extra substitutions, the kick out tee, etc.) have all made very positive contributions to the way Gaelic football is played today. I suppose it shows that managers are not necessarily the best people to garner opinion from.

There are quite a number of aspects that should be considered here when a penalty is awarded and taken: the distance of the spot kick from the goal line (currently 14 metres but now a proposal to move it forward to 11 metres) is a start point and what about taking the penalty (or the option to do so) from the hands as all other frees provide for?

The actual dimensions of the large parallelogram might be examined - I would suggest that the 'width' be extended to make the fouling area a much larger space; what about the players who attempt to follow the ball in after the kick having physically fought for prime position in the seconds leading up to the kick? I might suggest all players other than the goalkeeper and the taker himself must, before the ball is struck, retreat to a new line drawn 30 metres from the goal.

And what about the reaction of referees to often cynical and dangerous fouls that lead to penalties? The officials seem to regard the award of the penalty itself as enough compensation to the attacking team even though the player fouled is often carted from the field. Yellow cards? Red cards?

Perhaps we might consider widening the goal itself, have a new rule whereby the goalkeeper cannot move sideways (he cannot move forward at present but almost always does so) and consider placing both linesmen at the side of the goal posts to adjudicate.

The point I am attempting to tease out is there are many facets to a set play that offenders can exploit and it is not acceptable to say the status quo is grand when the evidence before us suggests that there is a dividend to reap when one fouls. Food for thought on a single new proposal!

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Some more food for thought as you wait anxiously for the opening games of 2010. Have a read of these anomalies in the rulebook and ask yourself where you stand on them.

The problem with the so-called 'double bounce' needs to be addressed immediately as quite a few players were unfairly penalised in the season just passed. We might focus on two terms that are loosely (and generally incorrectly) used surrounding this part of the play. The terms need to be properly defined and explained to all. The bounce should be the main focus whereby it is considered the completed skill (i.e. the ball is struck against the ground and back under control to your hand(s) again. The hop might be the incomplete version of the skill whereby the ball is struck against the ground but fails to be brought back under control to your hand(s) again. Two bounces in a row is a foul but a hop is never a foul.

Take a look at the rule that allows a red-carded player to be replaced in extra time (very prevalent these days) while yellow-carded players in ordinary time see their cards carry forward into extra time. This can lead to an anomaly when a team loses a player to a red card in the 69th minute of a game that ends in a draw. That player is replaced and the team are back to a full 15 one minute later! But a team that has a player with a yellow card in the 69th minute night see him get another yellow in the opening minute of extra time and be reduced to 14 men for the remaining 20 minutes! Is that fair?

When calculating time added on for stoppages and injuries should we insist the referee must add 30 seconds/45 seconds for every substitute used during that half of play? The new proposal is a step in the right direction (play ends only when the ball crosses a boundary line) but will need further tweaking.

I believe (because the rule is broken so often) that the number of steps taken without playing the ball should be revised upwards to five steps. I would remove the rule about the divot (use one and it is a foul) and would you believe that gersey pulling is NOT mentioned as a foul in the rulebook at all but is consistently blown by referees.

Is there really a large constituency out there that believes we should be happy enough with the rules, as they are currently constituted? The examples I use above must surely convince us all there is plenty of work to be getting on with, even at this early stage of the New Year. Tweet

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