Search

22 Oct 2025

TV View: Here's how the new rules looked on weekend one of the Allianz League

With Donegal’s opening Allianz League postponed in Killarney, the DonegalLive sports team kept an eye on the other televised fixtures on Saturday and Sunday, to see how the new rules worked out

Kick-Outs
The kick-out will now be taken from the 20-metre line and must travel beyond the 40-metre arc. Players may position themselves behind the 20-metre line when the goalkeeper takes the kick-out. If an opposition player interferes with the goalkeeper or intercepts the ball within the 40-metre arc, the ball will be moved forward 50 metres

Tyrone v Derry: Despite having the wind in the first half, Derry opted not to press up on Niall Morgan’s kick-outs and when they did in the third quarter, they had their most profitable period of the match, turning a four-point deficit into a one-point lead at a stage, before running out of juice late on.
Tyrone looked more aggressive - although not as much as they might’ve been had the short ones been permitted - when looking down on Odhrán Lynch and were happy enough to take on Derry in the aerial stakes in the middle of the field, with Brian Kennedy and Liam Gray.

Galway v Armagh: Very little in terms of attempted short kick-outs, which led to overcrowding in midfield - almost like the old soccer kick-out where you’d see 20 of the 22 in the centre-circle. Could be tough for a goalkeeper to pick out a specific player in space further down the road.

Dublin v Mayo

Another rule that will generally come down to a goalkeeper’s composure and comfortability with the ball. With the towering presence of Brian Howard around the middle, there was never any doubt that Gavin Sheridan would opt for the long kick-out, while Mayo’s Colm Reape generally went for the short dink kick-out to his defenders. A risky option considering ‘keepers and backlines will have to be able to deal with the high opposition press, but Mayo handled it well and only one of Reape’s short kickouts went astray when it fell out over the sideline.

To continue reading this article,
please subscribe and support local journalism!


Subscribing will allow you access to all of our premium content and archived articles.

Subscribe

To continue reading this article for FREE,
please kindly register and/or log in.


Registration is absolutely 100% FREE and will help us personalise your experience on our sites. You can also sign up to our carefully curated newsletter(s) to keep up to date with your latest local news!

Register / Login

Buy the e-paper of the Donegal Democrat, Donegal People's Press, Donegal Post and Inish Times here for instant access to Donegal's premier news titles.

Keep up with the latest news from Donegal with our daily newsletter featuring the most important stories of the day delivered to your inbox every evening at 5pm.