Talk about a test of mettle.
Meath and Longford’s recent O’Byrne Cup clash became the first ever competitive football game to be decided by a free-taking shootout.
5 players from each county stepped up to the 45. Nine out of the ten kickers took the free out of their hands. Only three out of the ten scored with their attempts.
Without a doubt they do https://t.co/jxp1ymRhuV
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) January 15, 2018
It shouldn’t really have been any surprise. On top of the players having 80 minutes of a game in their legs, free-taking in gaelic football is a specialised art.
Free-takers spend hours honing their kicking. Slotting a free from 45 yards is an achievement – even for free-takers. You’d wonder weather a team would have five players that could comfortably kick the ball 45 yards, never mind volunteer to take it on in the most pressurised of circumstances.
So the lads on The GAA Hour began exploring alternatives to the 45 shootout.
Conan Doherty was inspired by a competition he used to play with his teammates after training – and it sounds like a fairer and more exciting way to decide the outcome of a game.
“The chances of them scoring need to be so high, and that’s the drama, then, that somebody might just mess up. My thing was, the thing we used to be playing after training. It’s a competition where you shoot from the 13 right in the middle of the goals and if you score that, you go over to the left, and you shoot from the 13, and if you score that, you go over to the right and shoot from the 13.
“Then you go out to the 21 (and do the same.) So I was thinking, if you did that – across the 13 – three kicks – across the 21 – three kicks. You nominate six kickers – obviously put your worst kicker on the 13 right in the middle of the goals, and then put your best kicker on the wider ones,” he said.
So the order of kicks would go as follows.
Wouldn’t it be class? Distance wouldn’t be a problem and they wouldn’t be forcing their kicks.
It’s all down to accuracy, and the tension would be something else.
Lads would be able to slot these in their sleep. But when the pressure of a shootout is involved, that’s when mistakes are made. That’s when the bigger characters are rewarded for their nerve.
Would it be a better way to solve it?
You can listen to the debate here from 4″00′.
