Pat Spillane Slates 'Unacceptable' Trend From New Gaelic Football Rules

The wider public perception is that Gaelic football has been revitalised by the introduction of the sport's new rules which led to the most entertaining All-Ireland Senior Football Championship in years.

The likes of the limit to players in each half, two-point scores, and tap and go frees have been a massive success this season, breeding more adventurous tactics.

Serious efforts have been taken to improve the spectacle that once defined Gaelic football and had been lost by tactical conservatism which had marred the sport's entertainment value.

It should be pointed out that there is no guarantee that these new GAA rules are here to stay. Congress will vote on their introduction on a more permanent basis later this year.

It is expected that the vast majority of the current laws will be retained when voted on at Congress, although there could be a late push made to include a couple more rule changes for the 2026 season.

Legendary Kerry player and GAA pundit Pat Spillane has somewhat gone against the grain however, highlighting one flaw with the sport that has appeared to have worsened since the new rules were implemented.

An over reliance on hand-passing, as opposed to the more adventurous kick-and-catch style of play, has persisted and even worsened despite attempts to encourage the latter.

Spillane, who wrote at length in his column for The Sunday World, which you can read in full here, delved into the statistics which show that everything is not cured when it comes to the sport's bad habits.

We hoped we were going to see a return of catch-and-kick football. And a revival of kick-passing. Unfortunately, the stats from the final say otherwise.

"This year’s final had 481 hand-passes. That is 31 more than last year’s final. The hand-to-kick-pass ratio in this year’s championship was 5.5 to one. Last year, it was 3.4 to 4.1.

"So, in the next couple of months we are going to have to address that elephant in the room – the increase in the overuse of hand-passing.

"Because you can bet your bottom dollar that next year we will have a game with 500-plus hand-passes. That is unacceptable."

It will be interesting to see if the FRC (Football Review Committee) bring in more measure to try and combat the growing hand-pass trend.