The former Tyrone star was brought on to Jim Gavin’s Football Review Committee last year but he won’t feature on a new ‘Expert Advisory Group’
Peter Canavan says he has no desire to be a part of a new Gaelic football ‘Expert Advisory Group’ despite having previously served on the Football Review Committee (FRC).
The former Tyrone star was added to Jim Gavin’s committee last year along with former county referee Maurice Deegan.
The duo replaced Malachy O’Rourke and Michael Murphy with O’Rourke taking over as Tyrone boss while the Donegal stalwart came out of retirement for 2025, reaching an All-Ireland final with the Ulster champions.
The FRC submitted their final report last September with all of their recommendations passing at Special Congress a month later.
That effectively meant the disbandment of the FRC, with the caveat of a Games Intelligence Unit being set up in the future to monitor the current trends of Gaelic football.
It appears the formation of such a group is imminent and one of their first jobs could be to address the fallout from the change to the hooter ruling.
Canavan, though, insists he won’t be part of the new committee, although he acknowledges that some tweaks are inevitable.
“No, I wouldn’t have a desire to be part of a new committee,” said Canavan.
“There’s plenty of experts in the country, so they won’t have to go too far to get experts and people who get the game.
“I was more than happy to oblige and work with some brilliant men on the Football Review Committee. Despite the fact there was a consensus, everybody in that committee had their own views and their own opinions.
“It was very well managed and very well led by Jim Gavin. By and large, I think there are bits and pieces about different rules that people might not be happy with, but overall it’s been for the betterment of our game.
“Moving forward, it’s inevitable that there’ll be tweaks made to the rules. As players and coaches adapt to the current set of rules, the game could go in a different direction. Patterns of play could be established that are not conducive to good football or good viewing, and then something has to be done about it.
“So you’d be foolish if you didn’t have a group in place to monitor how the game is going. We’ll just see how the year progresses, and there could well be changes come next year. I fully understand why it’s there. “If done properly, it should work, but you’ve got to have a lot of things in place for that to happen, and clearly at the minute that’s not the case.”
Addressing the early-season concerns about the hooter, Canavan insists that he was in favour of the status quo last year when the ball had to go dead after the hooter sounded.
Kerry’s victory over Roscommon highlighted the issues that can arise after Tomás Kennedy scored a last-gasp winner in Killarney on the hooter amid concerns that the clock hadn’t restarted on time.
“Not all grounds have the required systems. Some teams are playing with the hooter system, some teams aren’t, and that in itself poses problems,” added the former Tyrone captain.
“You could say it’s unfair if teams then have to end up playing with a hooter. I felt there were a few occasions in big games last year where it went on longer than it should have.
“Passages of play when time was up, and you still had play continuing — that frustrated a number of people.
“The idea of kicking the ball out into the crowd was uncommon and appeared somewhat uncouth for a lot of people. They didn’t like that notion.
“So you could see there were aspects of last year’s rules that weren’t appealing to everybody. But by and large, I felt it worked okay.”
One further rule change that could come under scrutiny from the new rules group is players handing the ball back after a foul with Kerry boss Jack O’Connor among those who feel the 50-metre penalty for the infraction is too severe.