Given the changing sports landscape, is it time we looked at shortening the length of handball matches, asks Paul Fitzpatrick.
On a Saturday afternoon last March, I was at UCD playing a wallball doubles tournament. We got to the final (I know, what are the chances?) and just before going to warm up, I logged on to GAA Handball's live streaming of the All-Ireland 40x20 Senior Singles semi-finals in Kingscourt.
Two of the outstanding players of the last decade, Diarmaid Nash of Clare and Armagh's Charly Shanks, were going toe to toe and, from the first rally, it was fiercely contested.
There was nothing easy – both men are excellent retrievers, ambidextrous and extremely well-conditioned – and rallies went on and on. Every slightly high kill attempt was picked, every pass shot chased down. The will to win of both men was extraordinary.
Anyway, I threw the phone back in my bag and played the doubles game, which was on a 20-minute timed basis. We lost it (it was my partner's fault, naturally) and then hung around for presentations and photos.
After that, it was a shower and a few minutes shooting the breeze before hitting the road for home. Just over an hour later, having passed a tollbridge on the N3, I remembered the game and pulled into the a layby to check in on who had won.
And, amazingly, it was still going on. In the end, Charly won it, 11-21, 21-16, 21-16, the match taking over two and a half hours in total.
I got a text from a friend, a handball fanatic like me, later that night. He had watched the game online, too, but after a while, started to dip in and out. “It was just too long,” he said.
The match that followed was the other semi-final, Brendan Fleming versus Martin Mulkerrins. That one was a lot shorter and as soon as it was over, I filed short reports and results to the Sunday papers.
They didn't make it in, however, and when I queried this, I was told that I had sent them in too late for the print deadline. An opportunity missed, then...
Another tale. About 12 years ago, I brought my girlfriend (now wife) to Limerick to watch an All-Ireland 40x20 finals programme. It was an interesting case study as she had never seen handball played before – although she is, by this stage, long suffering – and was intrigued in particular to watch the senior final between Paul Brady and Eoin Kennedy, having heard me droning on about how amazing these players were.
And, yes, she enjoyed the senior match when it came around. By then, though, she had been sitting on a hard seat for five hours watching minor and ladies matches, both of which went to the third game, and she was, in her own words, “bored to tears”.
Now, don't get me wrong, I know this does not exactly equate to in-depth research but I think it is instructive as to where we could go as a sport. Regardless of facilities and the 'spectator experience', are matches too long?
Now, I can imagine that the comments underneath this article may be dismissive so bear with me – it's just an opinion; don't shout. I think it is worth looking at running shorter matches on a trial basis.
We have nothing to lose, as far as I can see. If, after trying it out for a while, the crowds are bigger and the games are more attractive to the media, well, it will have been a success. If they are not, we can always revert back to what we have.
Take last Saturday's All-Ireland Ladies Senior Singles final at Croke Park as another example. I was on commentary duties, with Cormac McMahon riding shotgun. We were in awe of the standard in the ladies final, which finished on a scoreline of 14-21, 21-20, 21-20.
A week on, I can remember the closing stages of each game vividly – Catriona Casey in the service box a couple of times, Martina McMahon getting back in, nerves coming into play as both players sent the ball into the rafters, some great kills and pinpoint pass shots.
Yet, ask me to recall the early exchanges and it's all a blur. I know commanding leads opened in the first and second games yet were blown, with Catriona then coming back to win the first and losing the second.
It could be argued that the first halves of each game, then, were phoney wars of sorts, both players feeling each other out, playing hard but aware that the real combat would only begin on the home stretch when they would be dragged into a battle in the trenches.
Fans are conditioned to that way of thinking, too. It was noticeable that the crowd came to life in the closing stages of both games and the viewing numbers on Facebook shot up then as well.
As we know, the workgroup tasked with looking at the Clár and various other aspects of the game have produced their report (one of their recommendations is replacing 21-point games with 15s) and engaged in a very open consultation process, something which is unprecedented in the wider GAA family.
For comparison purposes, the GAA standing rules committee have announced the most radical trial rule changes in the history of Gaelic football just this week. And there was practically zero consultation in that case, with a lot of inter-county players and managers finding out about it in the media.
Yet, in our situation, every county delegate in the country was given a chance to attend a face to face meeting with the workgroup and have their say or find out more and to submit more detailed feedback afterwards via email. It was as honest, inclusive and transparent an attempt to further the sport as could be.
I have my own opinion on the proposals – I strongly support some, do not fully agree with all aspects of others - but I believe that GAA Handball possibly erred in consulting too widely, especially when we compare it to the GAA's approach which is that those in national leadership positions entrust a small group to propose changes on a trial basis for the good of the game and go ahead with an open mind and try them out.
There is sometimes an air of negativity in our sport, borne maybe out of frustration, which begets a reluctance to change. And that is holding us back.
As I see it, if the proposals work, great. If they don't, the trial will end and normal order will be restored. Only a very insecure sport would dig in and refuse to try anything new.
The key word, though, is “trial”. Looking specifically at shorter matches again, they may help our games or may not but the sports landscape is changing rapidly in the social media era where concentration spans are shorter – witness how golf, the most rigidly conservative of all sports, is looking to speed up its format - and handball must be willing to at least consider moving with the times.
I wonder what would we have lost if the likes of Shanks v Nash and Casey v McMahon had been a little shorter? In my opinion, not all that much – and we have everything to gain.
Tradition is good, too, but all sports evolve and the most successful ones – like soccer and basketball – and those most open to change.
At one time, handball matches were best of seven and later best of five. Were followers aghast when they were shortened? And, in hindsight, were those moves for the best?
Let's give it a shot and find out for ourselves.