{"id":445,"date":"2009-11-03T17:14:19","date_gmt":"2009-11-03T16:14:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/conorpower.ie\/?p=445"},"modified":"2009-11-03T17:22:48","modified_gmt":"2009-11-03T16:22:48","slug":"headgear-issue-takes-attention-away-from-gaa-books-blizzard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/conorpower.ie\/?p=445","title":{"rendered":"Headgear Issue takes attention away from GAA Books Blizzard"},"content":{"rendered":"

Concerns of safety<\/strong> seem to be dominating a lot of the decision-making by the GAA national council<\/strong>.\u00a0 The attempted halting of the pitch invasion at the Hurling All-Ireland<\/strong> final and the new rule requiring the wearing of protective head gear by all players (even goalkeepers) were decisions that were taken in the name of improving safety for players.<\/p>\n

The debate is going to continue on both issues for a time to come.\u00a0 From my own slightly cynical point of view<\/strong>, when I hear organisations talking about safety issues<\/strong>, I feel the pervasive presence of an insurance company whispering in the ears of decision-makers<\/strong>.\u00a0 It’s also linked, perhaps, to the growing presence of the GPA<\/strong> and it represents, perhaps, a marking of lines<\/strong> – a defensive ploy, a laying down of a few sandbags if you like – in anticipation of the bitter battles<\/strong> to come between the GPA and the GAA<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"Kilkenny<\/a>

Kilkenny Helmet Police arresting Dan Shanahan for the non-wearing of his helmet during this years AI SF.<\/p><\/div>\n

But being bright and positive about it, although the measure of forcing<\/strong> senior goalkeepers to wear the sight-restrictive clobber <\/strong>seems quite daft, the whole exercise has already proven itself<\/strong> at lower levels in reducing the rate of serious accidents<\/strong>.\u00a0 So that’s a good thing to be welcomed.\u00a0 It remains to be seen what effect it will have<\/strong> on defenders and goalkeepers, however.\u00a0 I’m betting that next year’s championship could see an even higher aggregate score<\/strong> amongst teams.\u00a0 Fifty years ago, Waterford<\/strong> were knocking in an average of about six goals per game<\/strong> on their way to their last All-Ireland win<\/strong>.\u00a0 If they could get ahead of the posse and invent some class of helmet that would allow the goalie to see through it,<\/strong> then the advantage would be with them and we’ll see how many goals they’ll knock in against the likes of Kilkenny then!<\/p>\n

\"Front<\/a>\u201cMy Father: A Hurling Revolutionary, the life and times of Ned Power<\/strong>\u201d is out on paperback at the end of November 2009.\u00a0 Click here<\/a> for further information, pre-order<\/strong><\/a> and excerpt.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Concerns of safety seem to be dominating a lot of the decision-making by the GAA national council.\u00a0 The attempted halting of the pitch invasion at the Hurling All-Ireland final and the new rule requiring the wearing of protective head gear … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9kxa7-7b","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/conorpower.ie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/conorpower.ie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/conorpower.ie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/conorpower.ie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/conorpower.ie\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=445"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/conorpower.ie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":451,"href":"http:\/\/conorpower.ie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions\/451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/conorpower.ie\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/conorpower.ie\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/conorpower.ie\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}