Sweden is responsible for arguably one of mankind’s great achievements. In 1967, they took the apparently incomprehensible decision to stop driving on the left and switch to the other side of the road.
Although carnage was anticipated, the number of road fatalities actually declined that year.
H Day, as it was called, began with a mandatory 10-minute halt of all traffic at 4.50am on September 3rd. From five o’clock everyone changed sides forever. As a side note, Kilkenny and Tipperary later that day contested the 1967 All-Ireland final.
There are – expressing it no more strongly – considerable cultural differences between here and Sweden and some of those may be on display next Saturday, F Day, when another seismic change is implemented in this year’s football season.
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They have been explained, parsed and analysed but the new rules have barely been roadtested.
This weekend is when it all goes mainstream and even if they prove a roaring success, there is likely to be much chaos on the road to that outcome – even at intercounty level, with all of its attendant officials and referee supports.
I had a bleak pre-Christmas conversation with a vastly experienced former intercounty player and selector. Much of the dark humour centred on unfortunate club referees, officiating at matches on their own.
We imagined the hoax calls of “three men, ref” and as he turns reflexively to check the other end of the field, mayhem breaking out behind him.
There is no need to labour the contrast between Ireland and Scandinavia to point out that within the GAA, there is a strong impulse not simply to look beyond making new rules work but to devise ways of subverting them.
Only a few years ago, attempts to trial limits on hand passes were hindered when sideline mentors could be heard shouting random numbers at match officials, who were counting out loud to get into the rhythm of the experimental rule.
There has been such a fair wind behind the FRC proposals that there hasn’t been any major focus on the possibility of the ideas simply not working out on the field of play – despite practical trialling encompassing just a handful of “sandbox” games: the four October interprovincials and the various challenge matches organised by counties preparing for next weekend.
The tidal wave of fixtures coming in the next few weeks will see the “enhanced rules” subjected to sustained exposure in a competitive environment. In little more than two months, all club teams will be making the same adjustment.
If they prove to be too difficult to administer either in intercounty competition or in the absence of all the elite level supports, at club matches, someone will have to pull the plug or extensively rewire it.
The most influential change is the three-on-three in each half of the field, which is also the most difficult to arbitrate. It may be that teams and players take to it so seamlessly that it does, as projected by the FRC, become to a large extent self-policing.
It is all to play for from this weekend and it would be a surprise if FRC members weren’t experiencing prematch nerves.
On Sunday, we were served a thunderous club football final, which was so good in terms of the football played by the winners, Cuala, in the first half and during the high-quality comeback by Errigal Ciaran that it prompted reflections on how entertaining the game can be.
This was true but the FRC didn’t emerge from the chaos of stagnant football because only a few matches were hard to watch. It was the culmination of years of disquiet about how the game was evolving.
Last October’s scalded reaction to the four-point goal in the interprovincials and the two-point kicks from outside the 40m arc had consequences. It so happened the least competitive of the four fixtures, Connacht-Leinster, was played first and by half-time, it was over, with Connacht 18 points ahead.
The reservation that the revised scoring ran the risk of putting overwhelmed teams out of sight at too early a stage felt premature after one half of football. That sensitivity though ultimately sank the four-point goal and has made the new scoring system a little disproportionate, combining current goal values with a new two-point score.
Jim Gavin has argued – most recently at last Friday’s Sports Law Bar Association seminar on the FRC’s disciplinary reforms – that even under old rules, conceding three or four goals early in a match created problems for teams, but the committee dropped the four-point value, although its reintroduction has not been ruled out.
Privately, members argued that mismatches were an intrinsic part of the GAA’s competitive structures and addressing them had not been part of the FRC remit.
As long as teams have to contest matches against manifestly superior opponents, tactics will be rolled out to frustrate and keep the score down. The new rule enhancements will make that more difficult but not impossible. Addressing it will require taking a long, hard look at the provincial championships.
There are, for example, fewer complaints about the quality of league fixtures, which are for the most part keenly contested and less susceptible to blowouts.
In 1967 many in Sweden believed the fall in road fatalities after H Day was attributable to the additional care drivers took in the radically altered circumstances.
One downstream impact of the current rule enhancements is that it has encouraged an unprecedented focus on the rules, with one referee saying that players are having detailed conversations about their application in a way that he hadn’t previously experienced.
A footnote to all of this is that the minister responsible for H Day, a young Olaf Palme, was later assassinated when prime minister. Gavin will hope to find the GAA public more grateful.
