The three handpass limit, the four-point goal. We went to the trial game for the new Gaelic football rules to see which ones work and which ones don’t. This is our verdict…

Kick! Kick!’

It’s just gone 6.30pm on Thursday evening at Trinity College’s sportsground in Santry and the soundtrack to this novel game of Gaelic football is already booming out, via the participants.

We’re only seconds into what would normally be an off-Broadway colleges match between Trinity and UCD and the terms of engagement have been clearly laid out. That’s the shout that goes up when the first set of two handpasses are completed in the first attack.

‘It doesn’t have to go forward!’ Again, another instruction for the player in possession, that any attempted kick can be recycled in the manner of so many routine handpasses.

Welcome to Gaelic Football’s Brave New World.

Version 2.0.

 

It’s like a software update where you have to restart your computer and get used to the expanded functionality.

For some fans of the game, the worry is actually the limited functionality.

Kevin McStay has the impossible job of trying to convince Gaelic football fans that the game needs a fresh set of tweaks and trials. That’s the reason the Higher Education League is being used and this first round Division 1 senior league game has a series of intriguing rules on show. The chorus that rings out from the start is because a limit of three consecutive handpasses is being trialled – the most radical of five key changes. The 2026 championship might have been the best in modern history but former Mayo and Roscommon manager McStay was tasked with chairing Gaelic football’s Expert Advisory Group to ensure the game doesn’t stand still.

And so, even on a night when it’s all very low key – there aren’t even the required white, orange and green flags in the goals for the umpires to signal a one point, two-point or goal – there is a lot of interest in whether this version of the new game will work in this upcoming colleges window.

The five key changes then are: 

* Limiting the number of consecutive handpasses allowable to three

* A four-point goal rather than the traditional three points

* Modifying the kickout rule, requiring the ball to travel just 13 metres rather than beyond the 40m arc

* A ban on fisted points unless the ball is in flight

* A backcourt rule, akin to basketball, in which a team cannot play the ball back across their own halfway line

Apart from Mail Sport, various interested figures are in attendance. Such as Johnny Bradley, head of the GAA’s Games Intelligence Unit (GIU). His team will be crunching the numbers after this third level campaign, to see if there are any marked changes. Technically, round one isn’t a counting round as the colleges team have been allowed a short lead-in period to try and get a proper handle on it all.

Dublin manager Ger Brennan is there in his role as UCD’s Gaelic Games Executive. In the absence of team manager John Divilly, another highly regarded former inter-county player – Dublin’s Johnny Magee – is on the sideline with the college, along with Conor Meyler of Tyrone.

So, what worked and what didn’t work?

Let’s take the main changes one at a time.

Three handpass limit

‘The game we had last summer was fantastic, but it wasn’t actually the game perhaps that the public wanted,’ explained McStay recently. ‘No-one can argue that the handpass to footpass ratio is anywhere near where it needs to be…

‘The biggest issue left is the slow attacks and lateral play. They haven’t totally gone away, and it is still difficult to watch. We were keen to see if we could do something about it.’

When he chaired the original Football Review Committee, Jim Gavin introduced a few terms that were new to a casual audience.

‘Sandbox game’ – an Americanism to describe a trial game in laboratory type conditions – was one.

‘Vertical football’ was another.

On Thursday night at Santry, there was certainly a lot of vertical football.

Right from the very start, the impact of this rule was clear to see.

‘Kick when you can’ is the UCD instruction as they attack for the first time. And their first attacking move is set up with a swift kick pass inside.

 

UCD number eight Charlie O’Connor showed why he is a budding star with Dunshaughlin and Meath as he launched over a classy two-pointer.

With five minutes gone, UCD had raced into a 0-5 to no score lead.

Anytime either team puts a couple of handpasses together, teammates could be heard sounding a warning to the man in possession: ‘Two, Two, Two!’

On a couple of occasions, the necessary kickpass looked a bit forced and hokey when a handpass would have been the natural option but overall, as a spectacle, it worked. The game flowed.

It was like watching another sport in a way, with far less slow attacks.

‘That’s four handpasses ref’. At one point, the shout from UCD is echoed by various players close to referee. ‘Only three’ can be heard in reply.

Having the confidence of your convictions is essential for any match official.

Referee Barry Tiernan certainly had that.

There are so many good kicking moves on show. It is a form of Gaelic football, just not as we know it.

And, overall, it is working.

The entire first half goes without a breach.

The main problem is the match is so one-sided, due to UCD’s dominance. They lead 3-12 to 0-5 at half-time.

Then right at the start of the second half, UCD overdo it. Are pinged for the first string of four handpasses.

It’s the only time in the match it happens.

 

In theory, the new rule could make life so much more difficult for any referee. Now having to count handpasses as well as steps and all the other myriad live factors. But it quickly becomes self-policing. You can literally hear the players warning each other which acts as a warning system for the referee.

At one point late in the second half, when Trinity reach that quota of three consecutive handpasses, the referee puts three fingers up in a signal that is clearly visible to those around him, almost like an early warning system.

Handpassing becomes so limited – such immediate primacy is put on the boot – that counting becomes easy.

For managers and teams, less handpassing means less control. Likely more ball kicked under pressure or to a player under pressure – which should allow for the tackling and contact that crowds crave rather than just a possession-shot-score pattern with not a glove laid.

Now how players or managers feel could be another thing entirely.

It’s hard-wired at this stage to play a certain way and the handpass has become such an embedded feature of modern Gaelic football.

When teams tend to be overly cautious and try and protect possession with dull, lateral periods of play, the game can resemble an ‘orgy’ of handpassing – as the textbook definition puts it, ‘excessive indulgence in a specified activity’.

Well they might need a few new adjectives for all the kicking that unfolded.

A ‘feast’ of kick-passing.

A ‘carnival’ of kick-passing.

Or one for the critics – a ‘straightjacket’ of kickpassing.

Because there were certainly mixed reactions talking to the players and management afterwards. Trinity College attacker Scott Feldman spoke of its limiting effect in terms of passing options to a teammate.

His words were echoed by midfielder Tom McCarroll. ‘You’re going forwards, there’s nothing on, the new rules are trying to encourage you to kick forward but if there’s nothing on you can’t give it like. And I think just there’s too many things for the ref to look for, there’s too many things going on.

‘Maybe at inter-county level that could work, but say if you go to any club game where there’s only one ref, I mean even with old new rules, half the time they’re struggling trying to keep up with that.’

 

Four-point goal

Now the original FRC had settled on four points for a goal instead of the standard three to ensure that it holds value in light of inflation – namely, the introduction of the two-point kick from outside the 40-metre arc.

For all the thrills, spills and epic sweep of the 2026 championship, arguably the best the game has seen, there was an undoubted change in emphasis: the two-pointer was king.

Just look at Mayo’s approach to the All-Ireland final and how they embraced a mantra borrowed from Rory McIlroy: ‘keep swinging’. For the six-time Major winner, that meant trusting in his driver as his superpower, even when he missed some fairways. Keep swinging rather than play conservatively.

For Mayo, that meant keep shooting from the two-point arc. As Andy Moran was happy to explain, a clued-in management had done the maths and sifted through the stats. Watched how the emphasis in basketball had moved from shooting two pointers to three-pointers.

The four-point goal then, is a necessary corrective.

The FRC abandoned it under pressure after that first public trial at Croke Park back in October 2024 when Connacht put a big score on Leinster.

The knee-jerk reaction was that teams could be out of sight too quickly.

And there was a little bit of a sense of that at Santry.

At 1-5 to no score with less than 10 minutes gone, UCD were already nine points ahead instead of the standard eight. A small thing, perhaps, but for the team that concedes a four-point goal, the blow is as much psychological as anything.

But Trinity replied in the best manner possible: wing-forward Scott Feldman kicked a sweet two-pointer with his right foot.

It was one-way traffic though for most of the night. At half-time, UCD led 3-12 to 0-5. In old money, that’s a 16-point lead. In new money, with the four-point goal, that’s 19.

 

Kick-out to travel just 13 metres rather than to the 40-metre arc

With such a short run-in to this phase of experimental rules, it was understandable that the goalkeepers basically settled into their old routines of just going long.

Despite conceding a steady stream of scores, the first short kickout didn’t arrive until the 29th minute from Trinity. At that point they were 3-9 to 0-5 behind (remember, with the four-point goal, that’s 0-21 points to 0-5, not 0-18.)

But maybe they were thinking a move ahead because a short kick-out now carries more risk of a turnover. Not only can you not go back to the goalkeeper, as per the existing rules, but a limit of three handpasses means that options to slip the ball off short to a teammate run out quickly.

The change means the ball just doesn’t have to go out to the 40-metre arc – just 13 metres. Which gives a goalkeeper more options.

But then that kind of undoes the whole idea of the 40-metre arc and promoting high fielding and contests and chaos. The ‘piggery’ as Armagh manager Kieran McGeeney so colourfully captured it, that so many fans actually want. Not control.

 

Ban on fisted points

Coming up to half-time, UCD’s full-forward got a clear run towards goal. With his team well ahead, the conservative instinct might have been to fist a point. Instead, he drilled a goalbound effort that just whizzed over the bar.

As McStay pointed out, handpassing the ball over the bar is a low skill element of the game. And it was noticeable that UCD were still able to work a couple of fisted goals.

Half-court rule

There’s a logic to its introduction, no more than in basketball which also comes with a shot clock to prevent slow attacks that drag on too long.

But there is also a sense that the limit on the handpass is so restrictive that it reduces the need for any more restrictions.

When Trinity College breached the half-court rule in the first half, it was because the only player or pass on was in the other half of the field – just yards away.

Just two breaches though over the entire game showed again how quickly players adapted.

The Verdict

It’s a tricky one for the third level teams who know their main competitions will be played under a different set of regular rules.

Whether as a Dublin player or with Kilmacud Crokes or managing at club and county level, Johnny Magee has spent most of his life on the pitch or on the sideline.

He explained UCD’s approach. ‘Well, we’ve kind of just trying to simplify it as much as we can. We haven’t over-emphasised too much on it because the Sigerson [Cup] is back to the normal rules.

 

‘I suppose the big thing is probably the three-hand pass rule and just being conscious of that. And then just kind of have the lads talking to each other.

‘Look, listen, I don’t think it’s really needed. The one thing I do like is probably the four points for the goal. It’s more of an incentive then. Because the two points were a big thing this year and it’s great to see the long-range shot taken. But also the reward for a goal is going to four, which is brilliant. I would prefer to keep that.’

He said the lack of short kick-outs were understandable: ‘It’s hard to try and work on a specific short when we know we’re going to be playing Sigerson under the normal rules. We haven’t really gone after it that much.’

As for it being a kickfest?

‘Any team we’ve been involved with, I know with John Divilly as well and Conor [Meyler], we’re all about the kick-pass. I think the last couple of All-Ireland finals, the ones who’ve been able to kick the ball well around the field are the ones who end up being the All-Ireland champions.’

UCD’s dominance on the night meant that it was tricky to get a full picture of the rules. The coming rounds should offer more of a competitive stress test.

On the whole though, the game still worked as a spectacle.

Let’s leave the last word to the Trinity College social media account which had its usual wry, funny take on where it all went wrong in a 9-19 to 1-9 defeat: ‘New rules not suiting the lads at all.’