The GAA will trial new rules in the upcoming Higher Education Leagues. Photo credit: Jake Galvin
Cast your eye back to the 1990s.
Not for anything GAA related, now. Specifically to Channel 4’s timeless sitcom Father Ted. There’s a clip from Season 2 of the clerical comedy in the episode Think Fast, Father Ted, where Ted gets granted a 1996 Rover 213 by the diocese, to use as a raffle prize. Upon discovering a small dent in the now famous blue car, Ted whips out a hammer to straighten it out. A short time later, still attempting to get it “absolutely right” he has turned the car into a lump of warped metal and written it off entirely.
That scene is what comes to mind for me when I think about the proposed rule changes in the GAA, set to be trialled in the Higher Education league this coming Autumn.
The GAA’s Expert Advisory Committee, or EAC, was established by GAA President Jarlath Burns as a follow-on for the larger Football Review Committee (FRC) that was in operation and overseen a number of wholesale changes in the game over the past couple of years. Appointed to lead the EAC is former Mayo manager Kevin McStay. Also present on the EAC are Kerry great Maurice Fitzgerald and former Monaghan sharpshooter Conor McManus. And the committee including some of the greatest players and minds ever involved in the organisation has unveiled its plans for what rules it wants to change.
Among them? Basketball style setup rules, wholesale scoring changes and a relentless war on the fist pass.
The main rules tweaks set to be trialled are as follows.
- A ban on fist-passed or hand-passed points, encouraging players to kick for scores or recycle the ball to a teammate.
- A basketball-esque back-court rule: once a player has carried the ball forward into their attacking half of the field, they would not be allowed to play it back into their own half. This is designed to encourage teams to attack quicker.
- Limiting the number of consecutive fist passes to three, with a kick then being required. This is designed to encourage kicking the ball, or rather to discourage consistent fist passing in close proximity.
- Increasing the value of a goal from three to four points. Perhaps the most eye-catching rule change, this would revolutionise the scoring system and alter how teams attack. Added to the novel 2-point arc from last year’s rule changes, this could change the scoring in the GAA as we know it.
Kevin McStay, chair of the Expert Advisory Committee. Credit: Midwest Radio Online
Other rule changes include smaller details such as extending the 40-metre 2-point arc as far as the end line, six substitutes permitted instead of five, a drop in the requirement for kick-outs to travel past the 40-metre arc, and more extreme advancements for impeded free kicks.
Speaking to the Irish Independent, Kevin McStay outlined his view that “there is always room for improvement, and that’s what we’re about.”
But have the changes gone too far? Former Offaly footballer Nigel Dunne had a more dismal take on the proposed adjustments. Speaking to RTÉ, Dunne pointed out the high quality and efficiency of the 2026 inter-county championships and questioned the need for more rules changes.
“Why not let us enjoy what we’ve enjoyed and bask in it for a little bit longer?” Dunne said. “I don’t think people want to even hear talk about rule changes, they want to hear that when the game is not in a good state, when we have dour quarter finals, semi-finals and teams are dropping back and its handpass mania. At the moment, we have a good product so just give us a few years to enjoy it.”
Changing the rules so soon after the best championship I personally remember seems a big risk. Not only are the new rules a lot for the players to take in, but they will also be a lot to officiate. It is easy to officiate a game where a referee has two linesmen, four umpires and hawk-eye to hand at inter-county, but how will it all work at club championship games, or club junior games, or at underage? What might be manageable on a summer Sunday at Croke Park might not look so easy on a wet night in east Mayo.
If these rules were proposed in the doldrums of blanket defence ball, they’d have been a welcome change. But now, when we might just be closer to having the issues in the game fixed than ever before, one can hope they won’t do as Father Ted done and destroy a car to fix a dent.
The rules are well intended, but perhaps unnecessary. McStay cited they chose to allocate four points for a goal as it “would establish the primacy of the goal.” A brief look at the results in championship 2026 would indicate that there was no shortage of goals scored. Even with the addition of the 2-point score for a kick from more than forty metres, the goals rifled in regardless. A 2-point arc and a 4-point goal runs the risk of rendering a singular point score obsolete.
As for now, the changes are coming in solely for the division one third-level competition this autumn, with the Higher Education players the guinea pigs to see how the new rules go. Maybe they’ll work a treat. And if not, it isn’t too late to reverse them.
And just maybe, as Father Dougal aptly called to Ted upon his destruction of the car: “it’s no use, Ted, you’ll never get it absolutely right!”
Sonny McGreevy is SIN’s Deputy Editor and co-Sports Editor for 2026/2027. He is a final year student of English, Creative Writing and History. He has written for SIN for 3 years, mainly around sports and occasional politics. When he’s not presenting his Gaelic football show on Flirt FM or peering over a fence at a local GAA pitch, he's slicing a golf ball into the nearest pond or propping up a Sult table letting everyone know he's from Roscommon.