LAST UPDATE | 16 Oct 2022
WITH EVERY TREND comes an overreaction. Whole chapters of the GAA’s long biography will be made of excessive panic in response to the ‘in thing’. Consider the history of goals.
In the early ’90s, there was a growing frustration with the marked decrease in the number of goals scored since the 1970s. The question was asked about the value of the score. Originally it was set at five points in 1892 and reset at three points four years later. There it has remained ever since.
Then GAA President Sean McCague was chairman of a Rules Revision Committee which suggested increasing it to four points in football.
In 2018, Dublin ladies football manager Mick Bohan advocated for a similar change to negate the rise of defensive systems: “Rugby did go through it and they rewarded the scores with higher points systems. That made a difference.”
The idea seems to have taken hold in the capital. As recently as last year, Dublin GAA chief executive officer John Costello said the GAA should increase the value of a goal to four points on a trial basis – in both codes.
UCD history lecturer and former Offaly manager Paul Rouse went one step further and pushed for a five-point goal in his Irish Examiner column.
Despite that, the GAA’s in-depth analysis of the 2022 Gaelic football championship highlighted one remarkable trend. The 36.9 scores per game in the football championship was the third highest on record. The Tailteann Cup averaged 37.1 scores per game.
And goals still matter. Goals per game increased during the 2022 football championship to 2.6 per game. That is the highest since the 2.8 per game of 1989. There were also 2.6 goals per game scored during the 2021 Tailteann Cup.
It would be ridiculous to read too much into those numbers. No one should definitively predict an offence boom coming down the tracks. Something is changing, though. The numbers just reflect what the 2022 campaign exhibited.
There has been a change of emphasis. The blanket defence is well past its sell-by date. Self-preservation and a fear of losing no longer hold the game in a vice-like grip.
“A pure defensive structure is good to be competitive but those days are gone now,” explains Westmeath forward Lorcan Dolan.
“Teams are starting to realise that attack is the best form of defence. That could be pushing up on kick-outs and turning over ball.
“If you turn over a kick-out, a team can’t get set. Instead of ten backs, it is six or seven.
“It used to be about kicking from distance because of blanket defence. Then it was all scoring efficiency, now it is how many goal chances are we creating in a game and how many are we taking. That is what inter-county is about now.
“Once a time gets competitive, your focus switches. With Westmeath, last year we really started to look at the attacking side. We have the forwards to trouble teams. We were happy with the backline and defensive structure there. We can keep them to 14, 15 scores and back ourselves to kick 2-14 in a game or something like that.
“It was said to us in training, especially from turnovers when teams aren’t set. Like a kick-out. Get up the pitch for a goal, that is when a team is open. If you move it quickly, there is a goal on. That was drilled into us.”
The Tailteann Cup champions were also great entertainers. In Leinster, Jack Cooney’s outfit scored 3-13 and 2-15 and maintained that rate right through the second-tier competition.
They fired 3-22 past Offaly in the semi-final including a long-awaited green flag for marauding centre-back Ronan Wallace.
Ronan Wallace scores an excellent goal to increase @westmeath_gaa's lead. pic.twitter.com/21eo9ltO8d
— The GAA (@officialgaa) June 19, 2022
“We worked on that in training,” says Dolan.
“I imagine most do. If a team goes defensive now, you kind of bate them. I will bring it to a corner, suck three or four in there, move it into the middle where a runner is coming at speed.
“Instead of a lad coming to meet you they are coming across to you, that is a weak hand tackle. All you need is that to happen twice a game for a goal chance.
“We only need to get lucky once. The defence need to get lucky every time. Most teams are doing 3 v 2 or 6 v 5 attacking drills to build an overlap in. Against Offaly this year, Ronan got our first goal.
“Before that, I mean all year long, we had been saying ‘when is he going to get his goal?’
“All year he had been making those runs. When it eventually came, we were all like ‘that just shows how it comes from training.’
“It had been said a lot: ‘Wally, keep going. I know you are annoyed but your chance will come.’”
Dolan finished with three goals this season including a screamer in the decider. That move started with centre-forward Ronan O’Toole soloing to the corner and bringing three defenders with him.
A quick crossfield pass found Luke Loughlin who tripped after collecting the ball. He was able to execute a handpass back towards goal.
The match commentators mistakenly stated it should have been a free out after the ball was played on the ground when in reality, the GAA rules state that any player who falls or is knocked to the ground while in possession of the ball may fist or palm the ball away on the ground.
Not that Dolan cared. His only concern was getting a clean strike. There was a time when he would have gone down on the ball and taken the safe option instead.
“I definitely would have previously. When I was running up to it, I was thinking it over. ‘If I pick this, I will have a defender on my back and a keeper out on top of me straight away. No one will expect it if I hit it first time.’
“He will have to react immediately and nine times out of ten, if I put it either side he won’t get to it.”
Lorcan Dolan's outstanding finish puts @westmeath_gaa back in front in the Tailteann Cup Final. pic.twitter.com/2vufeYy5TA
— The GAA (@officialgaa) July 9, 2022
None of this is X’s and O’s, copybook planned and perfectly executed set-plays. That is not to say it isn’t deliberate either. Coaching at its best is about providing an overarching structure and allowing players to thrive and express themselves within it.
For successive seasons, the conventional wisdom was for forwards to vacate the scoring zone. Leave it open for a possible runner and avoid clogging up space.
This year Rory Gallagher’s Derry flooded it with five players. Suddenly defenders who were drilled to pack the scoring zone are being forced to shift from their zonal set-up. Derry scored 11 championship goals.
The tide is turning. An uptake in goals is just a symptom.
“Five years ago lads were afraid to give the ball away,” says Dolan.
“Now the best teams are not only trusted to take a chance, they plan for it.
“It is for the better. The scoring levels have gone through the roof and it is far more entertaining too.”
