Nenagh Handpass motion heads to Congress

By Shane Brophy

There was strong support for a Nenagh Eire Og motion at County GAA Convention on Saturday night to amend the handpass rule in hurling which will now go to Congress for approval.

Proposing the motion of creating an additional technical foul which states that it will be a foul “to either handpass the ball or palm the ball directly from the same hand that is holding the ball,” Nenagh Eire Og’s Conor O’Donovan said; “currently players are a lot more frequently engaged in the act of throwing the ball, which seldom penalised by referees.”

He added: “One of the key reasons why referees do not penalise it is because they physically cannot see how the ball was released by the player, so they give the benefit of the doubt to the player and while unintended this facilitates more and more instances of players throwing the ball.

“Conversely, on occasions it does happen that referees penalise players for throwing the ball when in fact the players have handpassed the ball correctly.”

Citing examples of such illegality from games and reactions from pundits over the last three seasons, the former Tipperary All-Ireland winning defender also provided a video to delegates of the proposed new handpassing actions allowed.

This motion was defeated narrowly at last years County Convention but O’Donovan and Nenagh returned asking Tipperary clubs “to take the lead on the issue” and allow the motion to pass to the next stage of GAA Congress.

There were comments of support from Liam Hogan of Shannon Rovers who said; “the name of the game is hurling and we need to see the use of the hurley more often,” while Cumann na mBunscoil delegate Jerry McDonnell said the game currently is now “less attractive” by the throwing of the ball and warned that hurling is heading down the road of Gaelic football where there is the over-use of the handpass.

Congress

Toomevara will also have a motion going to Congress after they were successful in looking for the penalty shootout being eliminated to determine games, after extra time.

Club secretary Patsy Hanley said it is a harsh way to determine the outcome of a game while the GAA is losing out on the promotional aspect of replays and the financial benefit also.

Another Toomevara motion which looked for all players eligible to play in a championship game be on the official list that is handed to the referee, be applied to club level as it does to inter-county, was withdrawn.

It was brought forward in the aftermath of Toomevara’s county senior hurling semi-final loss to Kiladangan where Darragh Egan was introduced as a substitute despite not being named on the team list as a player. Kiladangan broke no rule, but Patsy Hanley argued that it would remove any grey area and said that his club never intended on challenging the result of the game which was rumoured at the time.

other motions

• In terms of grading players for 2024, clubs can now name players just eligible after juvenile level on their eighteen-player lists that are submitted before championship.

A joint Cappawhite/Drom & Inch motion for the number of named players who can play a higher grade only be reduced from eighteen to fifteen was defeated with junior clubs successfully arguing that it would destroy the competitiveness of their teams as senior, premier intermediate and intermediate championships don’t start until after junior championships start and would distort the integrity of the competition with second & third teams stronger at the start of the championship than they would be towards the end.

• The County Board will add a bye-law to determine what happens should a county champion already have a team in the next highest grade. The issue arose in 2023 when Thurles Sarsfields reached the premier intermediate final whereby if they won, they already had a team at senior level. Their defeat by Lorrha avoided a scenario of what happens next with the CCC now addressing that possibility.

So, in future, should a club win a championship but already have a team at the next level, the first option is the teams goes up and have two teams at the next grade.

If they do not wish to do that, the team relegated from the higher level can remain at that level, i.e., no relegation.

However, if the relegated team still wishes to drop a grade, the next option is for the defeated finalist at the lower grade to be promoted to the next level.

If that club opts not to take up that option, then the winning county finalist will be forced to move to the higher grade and have two teams in that grade.

• Rosegreen were successful in their motion to amend a county bye-law with regard to juvenile player eligibility where two or more clubs share the same catchment area, such as they do with Cashel King Cormacs.

Going forward, a juvenile player having established his first club may only transfer to another club in the same catchment area with the agreement of both clubs, i.e., both clubs sign the transfer form.

• A proposal from Loughmore/Castleiney to run a county championship at Junior ‘C’ grade was taken as a recommendation for the CCC, as was a proposal from Carrick Swan to play the under 21 championship earlier in the calendar in a possible switch with the under 19 grade.

• A Golden Kilfeacle motion which called for the CCC to undertake a toss of a coin where two teams have the same first-choice jersey colours was defeated.