Club football is most definitely 'in' this winter. At this rate, we could see past footballers boycotting the inter-county championship next year.
For the past couple of months, Joe Brolly has been raining down blows on the inter-county scene in his Sindo column. Every week without fail. Now, Larry Tompkins has joined him in the fight.
The Kildare born All-Ireland winner with Cork can't bear what inter-county football has become. He told Martin Breheny in the Irish Independent that inter-county football is 'sickening to watch'. Judging by the reaction in his pub every Sunday, his customers feel the same way.
Compare most of the county games we saw this year with last Sunday's Ballyboden-Portlaoise Leinster club final, or the Castlebar-Corofin Connacht final a few weeks ago.
The club games are great to watch. It was mostly football as it should be played, as opposed to the county game, which has squeezed out a lot of the skills.
Tompkins proffered a host of legislative changes that might stop the rot. If Larry's suggestions are adopted, the Cluxton's of the world will be put back in their box. Quite literally.
Kickouts would have to get past the 45 metre line, passing back to the goalkeeper would be forbidden, goalies would banned from kicking scoreable frees and only frees kicked off the ground can yield scores.
And he thinks 'the mark' needs to be looked at again.
The benefits are obvious. People were saying it worked out great in the International Rules game a few weeks ago. You wouldn't need to be a genius to know it would be the same in our own game.
Read the discussion here.
