WHILE QUITE receptive to a number of the changes to competition rules applied at national GAA Congress last weekend in Carlow, David Power is quite lukewarm regarding some aspects of those moves.

For instance, on the matter of under-21 inter-county football changing to under-20 and to be staged in the summer months as opposed to February-April, he doesn’t welcome a restriction which directs that a member of a county’s senior championship panel cannot play under-20. David terms this as: “A backward step”. He simply asserts that there shouldn’t be any block on under-20s playing senior.

He appreciates the need for the switch to under-20 from under-21 when noting that it was also approved at Congress that inter-county minor (not club) will move from under-18 to under-17. But, with the failure of a push to get rid of the All-Ireland Junior football championship, the Tipperary-man would like to see Junior become an under-23 event.

He explains: “It might be no harm because then minor would be up to 17 years of age, with under-20 also, and then we could have Junior at under-23 to ensure a structured progression for players.”

On a strictly football note, David couldn’t be any more positive about the introduction of the much trialled ‘mark’, which means that any player cleanly catching a kick-out beyond or on the 45-metre line without it touching the ground will have the option of taking a free or playing on.

But the Wexford supremo again identifies a possible tweaking of this, as he would encourage a rule that “every kick-out should go at least to the 45-metre line”, which he contends would eliminate negative short play.