Last year's final provided some great moments of skill and quality, alongside intensity and jeopardy that lasted right up to the final whistle. The quality of points from Conroy, Grimley, Conaty, O'Neill were from the top drawer. The tackle made by Ben Crealey and Joe's block under the most intense pressure at the end of the game can't be easily dismissed either. That's what we should expect or want from an All Ireland final. Was it free flowing or widely open? Nope. But it was a final, with the weight of expectation and pressure that that brings. Should we expect finals to be free flowing affairs? I know I don't. If it works out that way, great, but they are there to be won first and foremost.
For me the arguments around the new rules seem to boil down to how much people value open, free attacking football over all else. If that is your number one concern, then the rule changes are for you. But there are other factors here that are equally if not more important imo, e.g. the principle of letting teams devise their own game plans that suit the playing resources they have, the ability of players to kick scores under the most intense pressure and in the tightest of spaces. I just think these aspects have not been given enough consideration, at least publicly in the media anyway. That's not to say changes were not needed to improve the game, but there just seems to have been a lack of balanced discussion around all of this and there is a rush to fundamentally change the structure of the game for the goal of entertainment. Jim Galvin publicly stated his goal was to make gaelic football the most entertaining field sport in the world (or words to that effect). On the face of it not many people would argue with that as a vision, but just step back for a minute and think about how that might look in practice - end to end, high scoring matches (kickers not under huge pressure), intensity levels dropped, teams constrained in their systems/tactics etc. That's my worry, but happy to be proved wrong.
