By John Fogarty
Kerry and Dublin managers Peter Keane and Dessie Farrell support a return to a maximum of six substitutes in Gaelic football.
Keane was forced into making two injury replacements in the first half of Saturday’s Division 1 opener against Dublin as Adrian Spillane and Brian Ó Beaglaoich picked up knocks.
The limit on substitutes have returned from six to five as the black card no longer pertains to an automatic substitution but a 10-minute sin bin.
Keane remarked: “When you talk about five subs, we had two gone in the first half. If you have a guy in your mind who will only last 50 minutes going into a game and you’ve two gone already and then there’s another two gone after 50 minutes that’s four gone and you still have 20 minutes and another six minutes and the possibility of one sub so it’s limiting from that aspect.
“The sin bin was replacing the black card substitution but I would (like to see it returned to six subs). It’s probably something that people don’t realise but the athleticism and the bangs that are going out there you probably could do with that extra sub.”
For the sake of the players, Farrell would like to see managers being able to call on six permanent auxiliaries and has also suggested the idea of rolling substitutes.
I think it’s really difficult on substitutes if you’re not seeing action and you’re doing all the practice and the training and to reduce it from six to five is very difficult on players who aren’t on the starting 15 or who don’t have the tendency to be on the starting 15.
“Wearing my player’s hat and being in that position later on in my career, I would definitely like to see more substitutes being made available. I think just generally if you look at other sports there’s a tendency to roll more and more subs on and off and what that does is keep up the tempo of games really high and that’s what spectators and fans want to see.”
Dublin took four advanced marks to Kerry’s one in yesterday’s game, three points coming from the successful kicks of Conor McHugh, Ciarán Kilkenny and Killian Spillane, who was nominated to take a mark earned by Paul Geaney who had injured himself in the process.
“In the little bit (of training) we did, we did a bit of practice,” said Farrell. “Obviously, the advanced mark is very new to attacking players and defenders. We didn’t get much time with it, though and I think the jury is still out.” Keane said the use of the advanced mark depends on the flow of the game.
Farrell said Mick Galvin and last year’s selectors, Paul Clarke and Shane O’Hanlon, were “the management team for now”. James McCarthy captained Dublin for the game but no decision has been made about the captain for the 2020 season.
Michael Darragh Macauley is likely to be out of the first three League games with an ongoing groin injury that may yet require surgery.