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20th October 2024
10:08am BST
Ulster's Rian O'Neill admitted that he found some of the new GAA rules a bit difficult to comprehend during this weekend's interprovincial series.
Several proposed rule changes put forward by Jim Gavin's Football Review Committee were implemented in the four matches at Croke Park, and they received a mixed response from both players and fans watching on.
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— The GAA (@officialgaa) October 19, 2024
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A dramatic finish to normal time results in penalties at Croke Park - with Ulster coming out victorious.
A thrilling contest between @UlsterGAA and @ConnachtGAA #AllianzGAAinterpro #GAANOW pic.twitter.com/WD70881tUt
It was clear to many of those viewing the spectacle that the new rules speed up the pace of the game a great deal, and it seems while those watching on might struggle to keep up with the swiftness of the play, the players themselves are finding it hard to keep up with the scoreline.
What made things even more challenging for the Ulster and Connacht stars last night was the fact that the Croke Park scoreboard didn't indicate the new scoring system, leaving it up to them to keep a count of who was ahead.
In the new rules, there are four-point goals plus two-point shots. Saturday's final game finished Connacht 4-15 to Ulster 2-23.
That would have been a two-point win for Ulster in the old world but that score tonight meant the match finished in a draw and thus went to penalties.
Ulster came out on top from the penalty spot, and the best performer on the pitch spoke to RTE GAA after the game about his experience of playing by the new rulebook.
"It lends itself to kicking it in in more often" - Inter-provincial final man of the match Rian O'Neill shares his thoughts after playing a second game under the proposed new rules
— RTÉ GAA (@RTEgaa) October 19, 2024
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"There was a lot of space the ball was being kicked in," said the Crossmaglen man.
"I suppose one thing from last night was we worked the ball a bit more up the field and tried to kick it in from there instead of launching it from 70/80 yards.
"As much as it is tempting to do that, the closer you work it in, the more shooting opportunities you’re going to get, and the scoring chances were opening up for us.
"I suppose it's hard to know if that was an All-Ireland final," he continued.
"Teams aren’t going to open up that expansively at the end of the day. You’re trying to keep it as close as you can to win the game, and it's hard to know how it will fit in if it comes in during the league.
"That might tell the tail when it's windy, sticky conditions, smaller pitches, and bad fields; it might bring teams closer together, but it's hard to judge it out there in Croke Park. It’s the best surface in Ireland, which results in a fast game."
O'Neill added: "As far as the scoring goes, my maths wouldn’t be great. I was trying to figure out the score. I was asking Aidan Forker the whole of the second half what the score was."
Mayo star Aidan O'Shea was hesitant to offer his endorsement of the changes.
"I don't want to judge off one game and obviously it was very one-sided as well," he said.
"We have to be careful that we don't change too much.
"Obviously, we want to make sure people are entertained and are enjoying the game but that seemed to be very one-sided and the game ran away from Leinster very quickly."
Continuing, O'Shea said: "Yeah the tap-and-go and the three-up I think work but the scoring system - I don't think there is any real need to (change that).
"But look, there is a lot of work gone into this from the FRC (Football Review Committee) so we have got to try and embrace it as best we can over the next few days but there is probably a few tweaks that need to be made."
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