Jim Gavin accepts that there will always be rule changes in Gaelic football. However, he does not understand the logic behind some of the most recent ones, particularly, the forward mark.
"I think that was the wrong step," the former Dublin manager told the Am Seo Podcast with Jonathan Courtenay & Diarmuid Connolly.
"We’re only one rule away from the game becoming Australian Rules on a rectangular pitch.
"If we introduce tackling, as in a rugby tackle, what difference is there from Aussie Rules? You can call a mark from a kick-out, call a mark both offensively and defensively once it’s kicked into the scoring zone. You introduce an Aussie rules tackle, what's the difference?
"There is a fine line and of course we want to promote skills and the kick-out mark has been good but the reason they introduced that was because they weren’t enforcing the tackle. The tackle isn’t that well defined in football. That’s the root cause of it.
"So why are guys when they win a kick-out being mauled? It’s because they can get away with it, it’s because the tackle is so ill-defined. There is a little bit of work to be done on that.
"I don't want to be too critical of them because they've done a phenomenal amount of work and research. Give me the root cause and then I'll give you the answer."
Gavin, the assistant director of the Irish Aviation Authority, continued:
"When I see some of the rules committees and even the current one giving statistics behind games, it’s like me doing an air accident investigation and just looking at the flight data recorder and the flight data recorder is going to tell me everything that went on in the flight.
"You need the cockpit voice recorder, I need to know the training the pilot has been under, I need to know the organisation culture, the environment, the value set and that will inform me what the root cause of the accident was.
"I don’t think we have gone in deep enough to see what the root cause is of a particular style of play."
See Also: Jim Gavin Offered To Resign As Dublin Manager At End Of Every Season
