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Dublin Live
Dublin Live
Sport
Pat Nolan

Mick Bohan open to giving the advanced mark a chance

Dublin ladies boss Mick Bohan has cautiously backed the advanced mark - and says there may be a place for it in ladies football.

A number of pundits have come out against the new rule, which has just been introduced on a permanent basis having been trialled in the 2019 pre-season competitions and Allianz League.

Three-time All-Ireland winner Bohan was in Croke Park for the Dublin-Kerry tie last Saturday and is warming to aspects of it.

He said: “I wouldn’t be as negative as other people seem to be at the moment.

“Certainly, if you look at the situation Ciaran Kilkenny’s mark, I thought that was fantastic.

“You can pick and choose at the moment. I think it should be given a period of time to trial.

“But what I’ve always loved about our games is the speed of play, and I’d hate anything that’s going to slow it down on a continuous basis.

“I actually thought defensively, people were much tighter because of it. But again, we’ll probably need a period of time to see how it’s going to evolve.”

Ladies football is governed separately so doesn’t have the mark though Bohan says there may be a case for it.

“There probably is. But I don’t think they field the ball enough. One of the weaknesses of the women’s game is they don’t high catch.

“There’s very few players who actually take the ball over their head.

"Aishling Moloney gave a bit of a display of it at the weekend, but there’s very few girls who catch the ball over their head. That’s one of the skills they’ve to improve on,” he said when speaking at the launch of the Gourmet Food Parlour HEC Championships.

The Dublin ladies also drew their League opener with Moloney's Tipperary last weekend and, with the Leinster Championship not being staged this year, the All-Ireland champions will face a minimum 12-week lay-off between League and Championship.

“It’s unchartered territory, we’ve to come up with a plan,” Bohan explained.

“We didn’t play in a League final last year, we’ve only played in one League final in the three years that I’ve been there.

“But even with that, the clubs will take over for a period of time, so there’s club championship pencilled in, and we’ve the same thing again.

“We’ve to meet with the clubs in the next week or two to just tidy it up.

"We’re hoping for quite a substantial amount of the club championship to be played during that period of time because that would make sense.”

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