Thrown but now blown
.
t’s the major talking-point in hurling in 2021. The thrown handpass. It’s been noticed, remarked, discussed, bemoaned, damned and cursed the length and breadth of the country by most hurling followers, apart from inter-county referees and hurling commentators, pundits & journalists who seem to have a collective blindspot for it. But just how prevalent has it become? Less bemoaning, more hard analysis.
I had a look back at the 3 major games in the All-Ireland SHC series, the two All-Ireland semi-finals and All-Ireland final and focused on every attempted handpass over the course of the 3 games (excluding, for consistency, the extra-time period in the Cork-Kilkenny game) to assess its legality or otherwise. I can’t present the study as “the facts” because the thing about the handpass is that it is such a subjective call, where it’s often so difficult to tell the difference between a legal and illegal manoeuvre due to the speed of the action. So each call is merely my own opinion on whether the handpass was a foul or not. But in assessing each play, I’m guided by a few aides
Firstly, the playing rule itself: 1.7 (b) When a player is in possession of the ball it may be…Released and struck with a definite striking action of a hand.
Secondly, here’s GAA Head of Games Pat Daly speaking in May 2010 ahead of the upcoming Championship ““The ball must be released and struck with a definite striking action of the hand. So the pop, or the sling, or the throw, or whatever way you want to describe it, is not allowed. It must be released and then struck, so there should be clear daylight between the ball and the hand, so that you see it being struck. A lot of the time it was done with one continuous movement. Like swinging a ball out of a sling. Okay, some players may be upset that they’ll be blown for things that they might have got away with last year. But maybe what was happening was that throwing was becoming a facet of the game. But the rule that is there now was approved at congress, and there is no change from what was used in the league. And that’s the same for anybody. Alternatively, you legislate for throwing the ball. But I don’t think that was the way to go. There is absolutely no skill in throwing the ball”
Thirdly, here’s Willie Barret, National Referees Committee Development Chairman, reiterating at the start of the 2019 Championship on the GAA’s own website that “we're trying to get the message across that clearly the refs want to see a striking action otherwise it's a foul hand-pass”.
www.gaa.ie/news/correct-hand-passing-a-focus-for-hurling-referees/
And finally, there’s common sense. We all want to see a game flow without overly fussy refereeing, so marginal calls should be waved play-on.
But what I wanted to see in every play I studied was that definitive striking action, that obvious disconnect between the cupped hand and the ball, a double movement that involved some sort of backwards motion from the hand once the ball was initially released before being struck cleanly (as opposed to pushed) with the palm. The sling, the fling, the roll down the fingers, the lightning quick open-palm-and-push are all fouls. They’re all a means of unfairly delivering a much safer, more accurate pass and thus keeping possession for your team in a significantly less-risky manner than the definitive release & strike. So anyway, here’s what I gathered:
All-Ireland Semi-Final, Limerick v Waterford
Limerick:
Total Passes 76
Throws 62
Handpasses 12
Other (Off-the hurl or Switch-of-hands) 2
Waterford:
Total Passes 37
Throws 22
Handpasses 12
Other 3
All-Ireland Semi-Final, Cork v Kilkenny (excluding Extra-Time)
Cork:
Total passes 57
Throws 48
Handpasses 7
Other 2
Kilkenny:
Total Passes 58
Throws 19
Handpasses 36
Other 3
All-Ireland Final, Limerick v Cork
Limerick:
Total Passes 65
Throws 46
Handpasses 13
Other 6
Cork:
Total Passes 53
Throws 39
Handpasses 9
Other 5
Here's a full breakdown of each handpass in the All-Ireland Final, by clock and player jersey number. I’ve put this up there so people can have a look back themselves if they’ve got the time and inclination, and agree/disagree on whether such a pass was a throw or not.
(Code: L = Limerick, C = Cork, T = Throw, H = Handpass, O = Other. So after 6 seconds of the game, Number 6 for Limerick made a throw, etc)
0.06 6L T
0.07 8L T
0.39 1C H
1.44 9C O
1.50 11L T
3.08 4C T
3.09 9C T
3.14 5C T
3.18 8C T
3.21 7C H
3.26 8C T
4.33 11L T
6.12 2L T
6.14 3L T
6.18 9L T
7.08 6C T
8.00 10C T
8.04 6C H
11.20 5C T
11.25 11C T
12.17 3C T
12.26 3L T
12.59 8L T
13.26 12C T
14.59 14L T
15.30 6L T
16.03 6C O
16.08 3C T
17.18 2L T
17.19 6L T
17.46 11L T
18.51 2C O
18.54 7C T
20.11 10C T
22.27 7L T
23.06 6L H
23.08 12L T
24.34 7L H
24.55 13L O
27.05 7C T
27.30 9L T
28.00 12L T
28.11 13L T
30.33 9C T
30.36 5C T
31.05 14L T
32.00 9C T
32.12 2L H
32.17 8L T
32.20 6L H
33.44 9C H
35.01 11L H
36.12 8L T
36.49 8C T
37.13 7C H
37.15 8C T
37.24 2L T
37.36 9C T
37.38 3C T
37.50 6L O
35.13 10L T
35.16 9L T
35.22 8L O
37.11 2L T
37.12 3L T
37.14 8L T
39.35 19C T
39.39 10L H
40.45 6L T
40.50 12L T
42.02 13C T
42.05 15C H
42.09 25L T
42.21 3C O
42.27 9C T
44.05 12C T
44.25 14L T
44.33 3C T
44.37 11L T
44.52 4C H
45.04 11L T
46.55 2L T
47.08 12L T
47.27 4L T
47.31 10L T
47.45 14L T
47.54 13L H
48.32 2L T
48.36 3L H
48.52 6C T
48.57 19C T
50.02 3L T
52.23 23C T
52.25 9C H
53.45 23C T
53.53 22C T
59.03 6L T
59.06 3L T
61.49 25L H
62.03 11C T
62.10 25L O
63.42 17C O
65.40 14L O
66.06 2L T
66.09 11L T
66.36 2L H
66.38 19L H
66.46 9C T
66.55 1L H
67.18 20C T
68.30 6C T
70.06 20C T
70.16 14L O
70.37 6C T
70.38 9C T
70.41 22C H
71.20 25L T
75.16 11L H
So in my humble opinion, that’s 236 throws across the 210 minutes of hurling I’ve looked at. 236 technical fouls where the team in possession gained an illegal advantage. Well over one-per-minute.
But the most remarkable statistic of all, and yes, I CAN call this a definitive fact or statistic instead of opinion: NOT ONE FREE WAS GIVEN FOR A THROWN BALL ACROSS THE 3 GAMES!
So where am I ultimately going with this? Why is it important?
Hurling is a fast-moving stick-sport. The thrill of the game since 1884 and well before has been the combat, the clash-of-the-ash, the fight for possession between two players going toe-to-toe, man-to-man, the lightning movement of the ball on to the next pair of players who would clash and combat for the ball and so on and so on until it went out of play. It was a fierce, enthralling, non-stop fight for the ball. But that fight for the ball is no longer a huge part of the modern game. The key word is possession. Keep possession, protect it, don’t put your possession at risk. So teams are doing everything they can to hold onto possession in as risk-free a manner as possible. Short puckouts and a string of short passes. And I have no problem with a team attempting to keep possession through skillful hurling means. But what I do have a huge problem with is the rules of the game (or more to the point, the interpretation of the rules of the game) making it so very easy for a team to keep possession by allowing them to string together risk-free passes. And a throw IS a risk-free pass, especially now that the threat of penalisation has been removed completely in the 2021 championship.
Short stick passes carry risk because of the skill required to carry them off. Proper handpasses carry risk because of the separation between ball and hand before the strike, causing the chance of a breakdown or misdirection. But throws carry no risk at all really, and they have become the go-to means for a team to work their way out of defence, or out of a tight spot, or create a point or goal chance with a quick, accurate, risk-free and ultimately SKILL-LESS delivery. I go back to Pat Daly’s words in 2010. “There is absolutely no skill in throwing the ball”. But we’ve allowed the sport to evolve to an extent that we’re seeing this skill-less manouvre 85 times (by my count) in an All-Ireland final at the expense of proper hurling skills where the players use their stickskills to develop the play. The sport is hurling. The implement in your hand is a hurl/hurley – you’ve been practising with it, developing your skills with it since you were 4 years old – we want to see you use it, whether it’s an All-Ireland Final or a juvenile match.
It is remarkable how the 2021 SHC inter-county season evolved in regard to the tolerance of the thrown handpass. The first couple of rounds of the league have become infamous for the high number of frees, many of which were for thrown handpasses. But something happened between then and the championship, a conversation or agreement amongst the referees that we’re not privy to, that there would be a total tolerance for the foul. The 4 provincial semi-finals on the weekend of 3rd/4th July were a huge eye-opener. Not one free was given for the foul across the 4 games despite an absolute summer flingfest, in particular the Cork-Limerick game on the Saturday night. The trend continued throughout the summer. In fact, whilst I didn’t see every minute of every game, the only Throwball foul I can recall being called in the entire championship was by Liam Gordon in the Waterford-Laois match, who rightly and ballsily gave a free-out for a throw in the assist for a Waterford goal as the game reached an exciting climax. Gordon didn’t get another game for the rest of the year.
But you can’t award 85 frees in an All-Ireland final for the same technical foul, I hear you counter? But you wouldn’t have to, if the players knew that it was being in any way policed, the incidence would reduce dramatically. A few early calls lets them know exactly where they stand. For instance, I saw an interesting game in the Munster u20 championship between Clare and Limerick in July, where the offence was pulled 4 times in the first half, leading to a much more ‘honest’ approach from both teams for the rest of the game. But the will is not there for the sports showpiece competition, the All-Ireland SHC, where the “game must be let flow” at the expense of proper hurling skills and proper opportunities for the team not-in-possession to reclaim the ball without resorting to pulling and dragging fouling. The blindspot for the throwball has those consequences.
What track are we going down?
• Well, Cork will look back at their poor-showing in the All-Ireland Final, and look for some positives, starting with the goal they scored. They’ll note the move for the goal, from short puck-out to back of the net contained at least 5 (if not 6) fairly obvious throws including one absolute fling by Tim O'Mahony. And they’ll probably conclude “this is the way forward – this is what we need to do every time”.
• Padraig Walsh of Kilkenny will wonder why he bothers. Pretty much every handpass he gave in the All-Ireland semi-final was a textbook coaching-manual release and strike – you could see the “clear daylight” Pat Daly was referring to. What a fool, when practically no-one else is needlessly putting the possession at risk in a similar way. In fact the whole Kilkenny team and set-up will review the fact that while they made a similar number of total passes as Cork, far too many of theirs were of the ‘legal’ handpass nature in contrast to Cork, meaning a slower or less accurate delivery. In a game that finished level, could one more smartly delivered thrown-handpass have made the difference? You bet it would.
• Cian Lynch will win 2021 Hurler of the Year, and to be fair he deserves it with his skills, vision, composure and leadership. But to also be fair, he is the throwballer that all other throwballers call “The Godfather”. 28 out of 29 handpasses completed over the course of the championship according to one recent newspaper report, and why wouldn’t he the way he protects the ball (I have him down 6 throws in the final, including the first goal assist and a second half goal-chance assist that was shown in slow-motion on The Sunday Game to be a textbook fling). And now without doubt, everyone will analyse his ultra-effective style of play, and try to replicate.
If you think 2021 had too many thrown handpasses, wait for 2022 (or even the upcoming club championship). The cat is out of the bag now. We’ve got 100% toleration from officialdom. And not only that, there’s an admiration of it emerging from the commentary box. “Lovely slip pass” commented Michael Duignan as Jamie Barron threw to his teammate for a point assist. “Oh the stickwork” said Marty Morrissey, as Limerick pieced 3 throws together coming out of defence – the funniest bit of commentary of the summer.
Conclusion
Stop codding us lads. Either make the throw legal (something I’d be dead against as it would in a short period of time turn the sport into Olympic Handball with sticks) or do something about it. We could well see another crackdown for the sake of a crackdown in next years league, but lets face it, come championship we all know it’ll go out the window again. How far are we away from teams closing out big games with slender leads by playing 'keepball', so beloved by Gaelic Football teams? Throwing the sliothar round the field to see out the clock - is that what we want our game to evolve into? And the ref won't be able to touch you for it - if he hasn't penalised the first 80 throws in the game, he cant turn around and start penalising it in the closing stages. My preference at this stage would be for a total ban on the handpass-from-the-hand-in-possession, allowing only a handpass off the hurl or a handpass from a switch-of-hands. This would be a major change but in my opinion it would place a premium on stick skills, striking skills, hurling skills. Hurling’s the name of the game after all.
I had a look back at the 3 major games in the All-Ireland SHC series, the two All-Ireland semi-finals and All-Ireland final and focused on every attempted handpass over the course of the 3 games (excluding, for consistency, the extra-time period in the Cork-Kilkenny game) to assess its legality or otherwise. I can’t present the study as “the facts” because the thing about the handpass is that it is such a subjective call, where it’s often so difficult to tell the difference between a legal and illegal manoeuvre due to the speed of the action. So each call is merely my own opinion on whether the handpass was a foul or not. But in assessing each play, I’m guided by a few aides
Firstly, the playing rule itself: 1.7 (b) When a player is in possession of the ball it may be…Released and struck with a definite striking action of a hand.
Secondly, here’s GAA Head of Games Pat Daly speaking in May 2010 ahead of the upcoming Championship ““The ball must be released and struck with a definite striking action of the hand. So the pop, or the sling, or the throw, or whatever way you want to describe it, is not allowed. It must be released and then struck, so there should be clear daylight between the ball and the hand, so that you see it being struck. A lot of the time it was done with one continuous movement. Like swinging a ball out of a sling. Okay, some players may be upset that they’ll be blown for things that they might have got away with last year. But maybe what was happening was that throwing was becoming a facet of the game. But the rule that is there now was approved at congress, and there is no change from what was used in the league. And that’s the same for anybody. Alternatively, you legislate for throwing the ball. But I don’t think that was the way to go. There is absolutely no skill in throwing the ball”
Thirdly, here’s Willie Barret, National Referees Committee Development Chairman, reiterating at the start of the 2019 Championship on the GAA’s own website that “we're trying to get the message across that clearly the refs want to see a striking action otherwise it's a foul hand-pass”.
www.gaa.ie/news/correct-hand-passing-a-focus-for-hurling-referees/
And finally, there’s common sense. We all want to see a game flow without overly fussy refereeing, so marginal calls should be waved play-on.
But what I wanted to see in every play I studied was that definitive striking action, that obvious disconnect between the cupped hand and the ball, a double movement that involved some sort of backwards motion from the hand once the ball was initially released before being struck cleanly (as opposed to pushed) with the palm. The sling, the fling, the roll down the fingers, the lightning quick open-palm-and-push are all fouls. They’re all a means of unfairly delivering a much safer, more accurate pass and thus keeping possession for your team in a significantly less-risky manner than the definitive release & strike. So anyway, here’s what I gathered:
All-Ireland Semi-Final, Limerick v Waterford
Limerick:
Total Passes 76
Throws 62
Handpasses 12
Other (Off-the hurl or Switch-of-hands) 2
Waterford:
Total Passes 37
Throws 22
Handpasses 12
Other 3
All-Ireland Semi-Final, Cork v Kilkenny (excluding Extra-Time)
Cork:
Total passes 57
Throws 48
Handpasses 7
Other 2
Kilkenny:
Total Passes 58
Throws 19
Handpasses 36
Other 3
All-Ireland Final, Limerick v Cork
Limerick:
Total Passes 65
Throws 46
Handpasses 13
Other 6
Cork:
Total Passes 53
Throws 39
Handpasses 9
Other 5
Here's a full breakdown of each handpass in the All-Ireland Final, by clock and player jersey number. I’ve put this up there so people can have a look back themselves if they’ve got the time and inclination, and agree/disagree on whether such a pass was a throw or not.
(Code: L = Limerick, C = Cork, T = Throw, H = Handpass, O = Other. So after 6 seconds of the game, Number 6 for Limerick made a throw, etc)
0.06 6L T
0.07 8L T
0.39 1C H
1.44 9C O
1.50 11L T
3.08 4C T
3.09 9C T
3.14 5C T
3.18 8C T
3.21 7C H
3.26 8C T
4.33 11L T
6.12 2L T
6.14 3L T
6.18 9L T
7.08 6C T
8.00 10C T
8.04 6C H
11.20 5C T
11.25 11C T
12.17 3C T
12.26 3L T
12.59 8L T
13.26 12C T
14.59 14L T
15.30 6L T
16.03 6C O
16.08 3C T
17.18 2L T
17.19 6L T
17.46 11L T
18.51 2C O
18.54 7C T
20.11 10C T
22.27 7L T
23.06 6L H
23.08 12L T
24.34 7L H
24.55 13L O
27.05 7C T
27.30 9L T
28.00 12L T
28.11 13L T
30.33 9C T
30.36 5C T
31.05 14L T
32.00 9C T
32.12 2L H
32.17 8L T
32.20 6L H
33.44 9C H
35.01 11L H
36.12 8L T
36.49 8C T
37.13 7C H
37.15 8C T
37.24 2L T
37.36 9C T
37.38 3C T
37.50 6L O
35.13 10L T
35.16 9L T
35.22 8L O
37.11 2L T
37.12 3L T
37.14 8L T
39.35 19C T
39.39 10L H
40.45 6L T
40.50 12L T
42.02 13C T
42.05 15C H
42.09 25L T
42.21 3C O
42.27 9C T
44.05 12C T
44.25 14L T
44.33 3C T
44.37 11L T
44.52 4C H
45.04 11L T
46.55 2L T
47.08 12L T
47.27 4L T
47.31 10L T
47.45 14L T
47.54 13L H
48.32 2L T
48.36 3L H
48.52 6C T
48.57 19C T
50.02 3L T
52.23 23C T
52.25 9C H
53.45 23C T
53.53 22C T
59.03 6L T
59.06 3L T
61.49 25L H
62.03 11C T
62.10 25L O
63.42 17C O
65.40 14L O
66.06 2L T
66.09 11L T
66.36 2L H
66.38 19L H
66.46 9C T
66.55 1L H
67.18 20C T
68.30 6C T
70.06 20C T
70.16 14L O
70.37 6C T
70.38 9C T
70.41 22C H
71.20 25L T
75.16 11L H
So in my humble opinion, that’s 236 throws across the 210 minutes of hurling I’ve looked at. 236 technical fouls where the team in possession gained an illegal advantage. Well over one-per-minute.
But the most remarkable statistic of all, and yes, I CAN call this a definitive fact or statistic instead of opinion: NOT ONE FREE WAS GIVEN FOR A THROWN BALL ACROSS THE 3 GAMES!
So where am I ultimately going with this? Why is it important?
Hurling is a fast-moving stick-sport. The thrill of the game since 1884 and well before has been the combat, the clash-of-the-ash, the fight for possession between two players going toe-to-toe, man-to-man, the lightning movement of the ball on to the next pair of players who would clash and combat for the ball and so on and so on until it went out of play. It was a fierce, enthralling, non-stop fight for the ball. But that fight for the ball is no longer a huge part of the modern game. The key word is possession. Keep possession, protect it, don’t put your possession at risk. So teams are doing everything they can to hold onto possession in as risk-free a manner as possible. Short puckouts and a string of short passes. And I have no problem with a team attempting to keep possession through skillful hurling means. But what I do have a huge problem with is the rules of the game (or more to the point, the interpretation of the rules of the game) making it so very easy for a team to keep possession by allowing them to string together risk-free passes. And a throw IS a risk-free pass, especially now that the threat of penalisation has been removed completely in the 2021 championship.
Short stick passes carry risk because of the skill required to carry them off. Proper handpasses carry risk because of the separation between ball and hand before the strike, causing the chance of a breakdown or misdirection. But throws carry no risk at all really, and they have become the go-to means for a team to work their way out of defence, or out of a tight spot, or create a point or goal chance with a quick, accurate, risk-free and ultimately SKILL-LESS delivery. I go back to Pat Daly’s words in 2010. “There is absolutely no skill in throwing the ball”. But we’ve allowed the sport to evolve to an extent that we’re seeing this skill-less manouvre 85 times (by my count) in an All-Ireland final at the expense of proper hurling skills where the players use their stickskills to develop the play. The sport is hurling. The implement in your hand is a hurl/hurley – you’ve been practising with it, developing your skills with it since you were 4 years old – we want to see you use it, whether it’s an All-Ireland Final or a juvenile match.
It is remarkable how the 2021 SHC inter-county season evolved in regard to the tolerance of the thrown handpass. The first couple of rounds of the league have become infamous for the high number of frees, many of which were for thrown handpasses. But something happened between then and the championship, a conversation or agreement amongst the referees that we’re not privy to, that there would be a total tolerance for the foul. The 4 provincial semi-finals on the weekend of 3rd/4th July were a huge eye-opener. Not one free was given for the foul across the 4 games despite an absolute summer flingfest, in particular the Cork-Limerick game on the Saturday night. The trend continued throughout the summer. In fact, whilst I didn’t see every minute of every game, the only Throwball foul I can recall being called in the entire championship was by Liam Gordon in the Waterford-Laois match, who rightly and ballsily gave a free-out for a throw in the assist for a Waterford goal as the game reached an exciting climax. Gordon didn’t get another game for the rest of the year.
But you can’t award 85 frees in an All-Ireland final for the same technical foul, I hear you counter? But you wouldn’t have to, if the players knew that it was being in any way policed, the incidence would reduce dramatically. A few early calls lets them know exactly where they stand. For instance, I saw an interesting game in the Munster u20 championship between Clare and Limerick in July, where the offence was pulled 4 times in the first half, leading to a much more ‘honest’ approach from both teams for the rest of the game. But the will is not there for the sports showpiece competition, the All-Ireland SHC, where the “game must be let flow” at the expense of proper hurling skills and proper opportunities for the team not-in-possession to reclaim the ball without resorting to pulling and dragging fouling. The blindspot for the throwball has those consequences.
What track are we going down?
• Well, Cork will look back at their poor-showing in the All-Ireland Final, and look for some positives, starting with the goal they scored. They’ll note the move for the goal, from short puck-out to back of the net contained at least 5 (if not 6) fairly obvious throws including one absolute fling by Tim O'Mahony. And they’ll probably conclude “this is the way forward – this is what we need to do every time”.
• Padraig Walsh of Kilkenny will wonder why he bothers. Pretty much every handpass he gave in the All-Ireland semi-final was a textbook coaching-manual release and strike – you could see the “clear daylight” Pat Daly was referring to. What a fool, when practically no-one else is needlessly putting the possession at risk in a similar way. In fact the whole Kilkenny team and set-up will review the fact that while they made a similar number of total passes as Cork, far too many of theirs were of the ‘legal’ handpass nature in contrast to Cork, meaning a slower or less accurate delivery. In a game that finished level, could one more smartly delivered thrown-handpass have made the difference? You bet it would.
• Cian Lynch will win 2021 Hurler of the Year, and to be fair he deserves it with his skills, vision, composure and leadership. But to also be fair, he is the throwballer that all other throwballers call “The Godfather”. 28 out of 29 handpasses completed over the course of the championship according to one recent newspaper report, and why wouldn’t he the way he protects the ball (I have him down 6 throws in the final, including the first goal assist and a second half goal-chance assist that was shown in slow-motion on The Sunday Game to be a textbook fling). And now without doubt, everyone will analyse his ultra-effective style of play, and try to replicate.
If you think 2021 had too many thrown handpasses, wait for 2022 (or even the upcoming club championship). The cat is out of the bag now. We’ve got 100% toleration from officialdom. And not only that, there’s an admiration of it emerging from the commentary box. “Lovely slip pass” commented Michael Duignan as Jamie Barron threw to his teammate for a point assist. “Oh the stickwork” said Marty Morrissey, as Limerick pieced 3 throws together coming out of defence – the funniest bit of commentary of the summer.
Conclusion
Stop codding us lads. Either make the throw legal (something I’d be dead against as it would in a short period of time turn the sport into Olympic Handball with sticks) or do something about it. We could well see another crackdown for the sake of a crackdown in next years league, but lets face it, come championship we all know it’ll go out the window again. How far are we away from teams closing out big games with slender leads by playing 'keepball', so beloved by Gaelic Football teams? Throwing the sliothar round the field to see out the clock - is that what we want our game to evolve into? And the ref won't be able to touch you for it - if he hasn't penalised the first 80 throws in the game, he cant turn around and start penalising it in the closing stages. My preference at this stage would be for a total ban on the handpass-from-the-hand-in-possession, allowing only a handpass off the hurl or a handpass from a switch-of-hands. This would be a major change but in my opinion it would place a premium on stick skills, striking skills, hurling skills. Hurling’s the name of the game after all.