Just weeks after taking up his new coaching role with Monaghan, Mayo legend Andy Moran sat down to discuss what the future of football looks like, revealing the aspects of soccer that Gaelic football needs to take to rejuvenate its appeal.
Moran's was appointed to new manager Gabriel Bannigan's backroom team after his departure from Leitrim's top job in July. His three-year tenure there saw the standard of football in Leitrim sky-rocket, with the county achieving promotion to Division Three in 2024, as well as appearing in Croke Park for only the sixth time in the county's history.
While Moran has already thrown himself into his role in Monaghan, showing up in Clones to take in the county's club action, he's yet to find out what Gaelic football will look like when the National Leagues kick off in January.
Andy Moran was of course referring to the upcoming rules trials in Croke Park, which will see Jim Gavin and his FRC committee trial a number of new rules in the hope of rejuvenating a sport that many fans believe has lost its attraction over the last number of years.
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5 June 2022; Leitrim manager Andy Moran talks to his players before the start of the Tailteann Cup Quarter-Final match between Leitrim and Sligo at Avant Money Páirc Seán Mac Diarmada, Carrick-on-Shannon in Leitrim. Photo by Ray Ryan/Sportsfile
Andy Moran claims Gaelic football needs to be more like soccer
While Andy Moran was cautiously optimistic about the majority of the proposals, he made an unusual comparison between Gaelic today and soccer in the 90s.
The Ballaghaderreen native was discussing how any new rules might impact Monaghan and the crossover between GAA and soccer on The Farney Army Pod, when he claimed that Gaelic football had taken all the bad bits from old soccer and needed to be more like the modern game.
I think (gaelic) has taken an awful lot from soccer, but I think its taken the bad stuff if you ask me. If you look at the real top teams now playing soccer all their passes are forward, they might go back once but the next one has to be forward.
We need to take that into our game where its more of a forward transition game, than a backward passing game.
We're nearly taking soccer from back in the 1992 Euros, pass it back to the keeper and use it - but we need to get to the modern soccer which is get the ball forward, pass the ball forward.
Like most teams when they're attacking they've five fellas across the front line. If you looked at Arsenal now they'd have Saka one side they'd have a left back the other side, Martinelli, Havertz and somebody else in the middle. They'd have five guys up in soccer. In gaelic we're taking the bad stuff out of the possession, instead of getting it forward.
While it's an unusual comparison from one of the games' greatest, there's little doubt that similar thoughts have been racing through the minds of football fans across the country.
Whether Andy Moran's comments might be a clue into what Monaghan will try and do later in the season only time will tell, but the former Mayo forward did reveal that he thinks Jim Gavin's proposals could be very beneficial to sides like Monaghan, adding that the likes of Rory Beggan would have little trouble adapting to the new rules.
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