Football Crisis - What's to be done?

davegrohl48

JRant wrote: »

If you want open football then the easiest solution is to do away with the winter league and begin games in April/May.

When the ground firms up the better players can thrive. If we persist in playing on sodden pitches then the fare will not change.

There's no need for 13 a side. Plenty of room on a pitch for 15 each when teams use the space properly.

There is no space inside the 40 yard scoring zone if one side plays a blanket.

LeinsterDub

davegrohl48 wrote: »

There is no space inside the 40 yard scoring zone if one side plays a blanket.

Ice hockey like rule were you must keep a set number of players in the opposition half?

homewardbound11

A good time for a list of changes .
Pick your own or make a poll .
Mine would be .

-) remove the black card it's making a joke of referees.
-) video referee or 2 referees on the pitch.
-) sin binning for persistent fouling . On top of that moving the ball 30 yards for the foul.
-) if black cards are kept then they should carry on through the season. 3black / yellow cards would be a ban.

By the way . I enjoyed donegal last year. Enjoyed their football and for the most part Monaghan .
Tyrone were difficult to watch. As for Dublin supporters . They made the evening enjoyable in castlebar a few weeks ago . Great travelling support. As were Monaghan before them .

dxhound2005

How many scores do people expect in competitive matches? In Division One out of 24 games so far just two have been under 20 scores and they were real outliers, 14 and 12. The rest were 20 scores or more with some over 30.

https://www.gaa.ie/fixtures-and-results/national-fixtures/allianz-football-league/

This is not out of step with any other year I remember. Going back to the days of 60 minute football very low scores were often the order of the day. Just look at the results in League finals and All Ireland finals from the old days. If it was all based on everyone staying in their positions playing catch and kick the forwards had a lot of off days.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Football_League_(Ireland)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_All-Ireland_Senior_Football_Championship_finals

Whatever else is happening in football it seems the defensive approach has not made much change to scorelines in general.

Dirty Dingus McGee

dxhound2005 wrote: »

How many scores do people expect in competitive matches? In Division One out of 24 games so far just two have been under 20 scores and they were real outliers, 14 and 12. The rest were 20 scores or more with some over 30.

https://www.gaa.ie/fixtures-and-results/national-fixtures/allianz-football-league/

This is not out of step with any other year I remember. Going back to the days of 60 minute football very low scores were often the order of the day. Just look at the results in League finals and All Ireland finals from the old days. If it was all based on everyone staying in their positions playing catch and kick the forwards had a lot of off days.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Football_League_(Ireland)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_All-Ireland_Senior_Football_Championship_finals

Whatever else is happening in football it seems the defensive approach has not made much change to scorelines in general.

Which indicates that the players are much more skilful these days and the game could be even better than it currently is.

I don't think anyone wants to go back to the 70's and 80's style football but in my opinion the game can be a lot better than it currently is and the GAA should be trying to maximise the potential the game has by encouraging teams to play more attack minded football.

JRant

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

Which indicates that the players are much more skilful these days and the game could be even better than it currently is.

I don't think anyone wants to go back to the 70's and 80's style football but in my opinion the game can be a lot better than it currently is and the GAA should be trying to maximise the potential the game has by encouraging teams to play more attack minded football.

Just get the refs to clamp down on the dirty stuff. A blanket defense can be beaten with quick passing and interchanges. It can't when persistent fouling is allowed on the attacking team.

I'd like to see a real push on developing referees further before any more rules are changed or new ones come in.

They also need to clear up the tackle area as well. The rules seem to change depending on what way the wind is blowing. Perfectly good tackling is being blown up while persistent jersey pulling and stray digs are let slide.

WesternZulu

Is there any other sport that gets ridiculed as much as Gaelic football on the basic of individual games?

Watch out for the 1st bad televised game in the Championship and we'll hear the same statements predicting 'the death' of the game.

average_runner

Direct football will always beat the defensive game.

iDave

Godge wrote: »

It is mostly fans of teams like Mayo, Cork, Donegal and Kerry who argue for Dublin to be split up (as well as local rivals Meath and Kildare). The rest of the country don't care because it wouldn't change their chances of winning All-Irelands or Leinsters .

Nonsense

iDave

We have a huge problem with overreactions in GAA. Maybe its the lack of big games due to the nature of the competitions that causes this but it certainly contributes. With such a small pool of games a few bad ones stick out like a sore thumb. No one declares the end of the Premiership after a few boring defensive games as the season is 38 games long.
Its the same if a team has a bad or good game. They are either the best thing since sliced bread or hopeless, then the perception turns on its head after the next game.
Regardless of the rules there will be dire games. Its inevitable. It even happens in hurling believe it or not.
Lets stop being reactionary and see how the season pans out. Unfortunately the sensationalist pundits will keep whipping up these storms.

Tom Joad

MayoAreMagic wrote: »

Well people were saying that basically every football team is gone so defensive now because they simply cannot match Dublin. So if Dublin is the common denominator then obviously there is an issue around the strength of Dublin compared to all the other teams.

Without putting too fine a point on it that is nonsense.

Do you really think that teams like Cavan, Kildare, Down, Fermanagh and Westmeath(all teams I have seen in the flesh this year who have employed an "ultra defensive" set-up are really sitting down at the start of the year and devising a game plan based on a defensive system because Dublin are too strong?

It's absolutely nothing to do with Dublin.

UnitedIrishman

Few things:

The game doesn't need to change at all. The issue lies with those playing against the blanket defence and not those employing it. Find a way to beat it - even if that means doing the same. There are always going to be dour games especially at this time of the year but guess what - the two sides playing the most dour styles are likely to be relegated so what benefit has it been to them? Eventually their own fans will vote with their feet or with their voice and something will change. Or their coaches will realise what they are doing is not beneficial to their own team.

The media is so kneejerky its pathetic and I don't understand why anyone decided to listen to such 'visionaries' as Joe Brolly and co. I remember going to games in the mid-90's when Mayo were playing sides and we won 0-8 0-6, 0-10 0-4, 0-7 0-6, 0-9 0-7 in consecutive games. And yet there were no clamours for a radical change in the game. In fact Brolly and co would have you believe these were glory days of GAA - I wasn't old enough to see or remember the so called 'great matches between Meath and Dublin' but watched one of them on TG4 recently and it was absolutely muck. If watching Bernard Flynn taking 10 mins to kick free after free and assaults around the field are your thing then fair enough.

Also I don't remember any media clamouring for change when Donegal faced Tyrone or Mayo faced Tyrone or Derry. Suddenly it becomes a problem when Derry don't (as one writer called it) bend over and lube themselves up for Dublin to have their way with them. As far as I'm concerned any manager that sends his team into a gunfight with that Dublin side matching up man for man is signing his own death warrant. They have exceptional forwards all over including the bench and good attacking backs that I don't think any side in the country could match up to. If anything, if we reached the final this year against Dublin with a gameplan of matching them man for man I'd be calling Connelly and Holmes naive - not saying 'oh well fair play for playing the right way'. No All Ireland has an asteriks beside it saying 'Let it be known the runners up played in the right spirit'.

Another aspect that annoys me, again this relates to the media, where was the objections last year when Kerry played the same way? For almost the entirety of the season they played a cynical blanket defensive brand of football but seemingly are absolved of any criticism. Apparently you must be from one of those northern counties to receive the same scrutiny.

And lastly, everyone calling for the game to change.. how exactly are you planning to do that when our refs can't even get basic decisions right? One or two mentions - not on here - of forcing sides to have 2-3 players in the opposite half. Your gonna need about 2 or 3 more officials per game and there at club games I'm at there aren't even linesman.

In summary, the game will come good in the summer and if not then I'm still not going to worry. Everyone thought it was the end of the world when Tyrone started playing the way they did winning their first All Ireland.

HighKing33

15-a-side is just too much, no-one foresaw the modern game with it's emphasis on running the ball and the increased emphasis that would make. We shouldn't hamstring coaches, some teams will always be defensive and you can't make tactics illegal. 13-a-side however, would create more space between the lines and reward teams that kick the ball, coaches across the country would have to react to this in order to be successfull with more emphasis being placed on kicking in training.

castletownman

A few weeks ago Colm Parkinson made the assertion on Off the Ball that the blanket defence is such an easy tactic to adopt that he could get fifteen professional soccer or rugby players. have them train in the tactics for a short period of time, and they will be able to limit an inter-county team to very few scores.

He fails to bring into the equation the need of having top forwards to capitilise on being miserly in your set-up in order to be consistent and successful

A quick look at the teams that were pandered for their "ultra-defensive" method ("puke football"), namely Donegal, Tyrone and Armagh, bring up such attacking talents as Murphy, McFadden, O'Neill, Canavan, Mulligan, Dooher, McGuigan, McConville, Clarke, Marsden and McDonnell.

If anything, being able to strike up a balance between shutting out your opponents and carrying enough fire-power up front to be able to out-score them regardless, and being able to make the quick transition from turn-over to score at the other end (with Donegal '12 the ultimate example recently) is a harder trick to master than the "traditional" way so favoured by pundits and media alike.

There's not a thing wrong with the game. Derry just need a couple of top forwards for it to be more successful.

davegrohl48

In relation to comments such as:
"See how the season pans out"
"Always be a handful of dour games"
I'v watched the live games and highlights of each weekend of the entire league so far. The enjoyable games have been in the minority. So the seasons of league and championship football since 2011 are panning out to have dour defensive football in the majority. Thats almost five full seasons.
How long shall we wait? Seven seasons?
When an entire tranche of teams are either playing the blanket or struggling to beat the blanket don't you think it is time for change?
Five seasons and no one has found a way yet which has caused football to move towards a more open approach.
Chiming in from the sidelines with advice such as "move the ball quick", "switch wings" "diagonal balls".
Ye honestly think the best coaches in the country who have studied the game to the nth degree are somehow missing out on these pearls of wisdom on how to beat the blanket?
Another thing, the fall off in interest will not be gradual. If people start to lose interest it will be at pretty damaging levels of fall off in tv viewing and match attendance.
Finally the club players in some counties, how enjoyable is it to turn up three times a week to train and play in defensive football?
Posession drills for instance will leave you black and blue from tackles. This is the drill where one side has to retain the ball in a small square. Horrible, horrible stuff to have to train. Seen another drill with a 2 metre wide channel and having to barge your way past a defender. Who will keep turning up to train in that kind of stuff?

elefant

davegrohl48 wrote: »

Posession drills for instance will leave you black and blue from tackles. This is the drill where one side has to retain the ball in a small square. Horrible, horrible stuff to have to train. Seen another drill with a 2 metre wide channel and having to barge your way past a defender. Who will keep turning up to train in that kind of stuff?

I've always enjoyed playing those possession games, and most teammates I've ever had have done so too. I don't see the issue with it.

iDave

davegrohl48 wrote: »

In relation to comments such as:
"See how the season pans out"
"Always be a handful of dour games"
I'v watched the live games and highlights of each weekend of the entire league so far. The enjoyable games have been in the minority. So the seasons of league and championship football since 2011 are panning out to have dour defensive football in the majority. Thats almost five full seasons.
How long shall we wait? Seven seasons?

So what do we do then? Tinker with the rules further. Rules that wont be implemented properly like the black card. Complicate the sport further?
I'd love to see the mess trying to police a rule that limits the amount of players in one half of the pitch will be.

UnitedIrishman

davegrohl48 wrote: »

In relation to comments such as:
"See how the season pans out"
"Always be a handful of dour games"
I'v watched the live games and highlights of each weekend of the entire league so far. The enjoyable games have been in the minority. So the seasons of league and championship football since 2011 are panning out to have dour defensive football in the majority. Thats almost five full seasons.
How long shall we wait? Seven seasons?
When an entire tranche of teams are either playing the blanket or struggling to beat the blanket don't you think it is time for change?
Five seasons and no one has found a way yet which has caused football to move towards a more open approach.
Chiming in from the sidelines with advice such as "move the ball quick", "switch wings" "diagonal balls".
Ye honestly think the best coaches in the country who have studied the game to the nth degree are somehow missing out on these pearls of wisdom on how to beat the blanket?
Another thing, the fall off in interest will not be gradual. If people start to lose interest it will be at pretty damaging levels of fall off in tv viewing and match attendance.
Finally the club players in some counties, how enjoyable is it to turn up three times a week to train and play in defensive football?
Posession drills for instance will leave you black and blue from tackles. This is the drill where one side has to retain the ball in a small square. Horrible, horrible stuff to have to train. Seen another drill with a 2 metre wide channel and having to barge your way past a defender. Who will keep turning up to train in that kind of stuff?

All complete and utter tripe. Considering the stats show the scoring rate has increased in that time period - but I'm not going to go into the stats of it all. Is every game meant to be a Superbowlesque game on live TV?

And those possession games are massively important and most players I play with enjoy them. Nothing worse than standing in a corner of a pitch waiting for ever getting the ball.

davegrohl48

UnitedIrishman wrote: »

All complete and utter tripe. Considering the stats show the scoring rate has increased in that time period - but I'm not going to go into the stats of it all. Is every game meant to be a Superbowlesque game on live TV?

And those possession games are massively important and most players I play with enjoy them. Nothing worse than standing in a corner of a pitch waiting for ever getting the ball.

Okay I'll qualify posession drill with one point. Where the square being used is too small, I guess that's simply bad coaching. I'll admit in the larger square when you have space to move about it can be enjoyable.
Every game is not meant to be a super bowlesque match but peoples concerns is the visual appearance of play and common scorelines of 9 pts - 7 pts etc.

Jampip

UnitedIrishman wrote: »

Another aspect that annoys me, again this relates to the media, where was the objections last year when Kerry played the same way? For almost the entirety of the season they played a cynical blanket defensive brand of football but seemingly are absolved of any criticism. Apparently you must be from one of those northern counties to receive the same scrutiny.

I made the same point earlier and was disagreed with. Of course Kerry play the beautiful game along with their blanket - stick the lanky fella in full forward and bomb the ball in. It's revolutionary stuff.

I think we, as a community in GAA, need to stop listening to self serving pundits like Spillane and Brolly. The only thing they are doing is laughing the whole way to the bank.

Brolly, for example, has thrown out "black death" comments about Cavan twice. Once in the week we were due to play Derry in a qualifier two years ago and again last season when we were playing them in U21s. Now I wonder why he chose those particular weeks?

davegrohl48

Jampip wrote: »

I made the same point earlier and was disagreed with. Of course Kerry play the beautiful game along with their blanket - stick the lanky fella in full forward and bomb the ball in. It's revolutionary stuff.

I think we, as a community in GAA, need to stop listening to self serving pundits like Spillane and Brolly. The only thing they are doing is laughing the whole way to the bank.

Brolly, for example, has thrown out "black death" comments about Cavan twice. Once in the week we were due to play Derry in a qualifier two years ago and again last season when we were playing them in U21s. Now I wonder why he chose those particular weeks?

Is it not also Brolly who has called out the GPA for being silent on the Clare hurling saga?
Brolly who has been the loudest voice about the quality of football?
I commend him for raising the issues for them to be debated. The current president of the GAA thinks football is perfectly fine whereas Jarlath Burns agrees with Brolly.
There is a clear division of opinion as is perfectly natural. You can't just dismiss Brolly as a ranter.
Yes he was out of line to label only Cavan in the instance you bring up. He was also way out of line in relation to three high profile footballers over the years. But in relation to the quality of football many agree with him. I would say more than 50% agree.

Jampip

davegrohl48 wrote: »

Is it not also Brolly who has called out the GPA for being silent on the Clare hurling saga?
Brolly who has been the loudest voice about the quality of football?
I commend him for raising the issues for them to be debated. The current president of the GAA thinks football is perfectly fine whereas Jarlath Burns agrees with Brolly.
There is a clear division of opinion as is perfectly natural. You can't just dismiss Brolly as a ranter.
Yes he was out of line to label only Cavan in the instance you bring up. He was also way out of line in relation to three high profile footballers over the years. But in relation to the quality of football many agree with him. I would say more than 50% agree.

I don't think the quality of football has dipped that much. I just think the likes of Brolly and Spillane are looking back on the years they played with rose tinted glasses. They are also biased. Spillane fails to acknowledge that Kerry's football at times is far from the beautiful game.

The game has evolved and tactics have become hugely significant but surely that's change for the better?

Joe says the Derry lads were embarassed about the way they played last Saturday but were they not equally embarassed last year when Dublin beat them 3-19 to 1-10? A 15 point loss.

davegrohl48

Jampip wrote: »

I don't think the quality of football has dipped that much. I just think the likes of Brolly and Spillane are looking back on the years they played with rose tinted glasses. They are also biased. Spillane fails to acknowledge that Kerry's football at times is far from the beautiful game.

The game has evolved and tactics have become hugely significant but surely that's change for the better?

Joe says the Derry lads were embarassed about the way they played last Saturday but were they not equally embarassed last year when Dublin beat them 3-19 to 1-10? A 15 point loss.

One thing that muddies the water is Spillanes opinion on skills declining. The players nowadays are as good if not better at all skills.

davegrohl48

Jampip wrote: »

I don't think the quality of football has dipped that much. I just think the likes of Brolly and Spillane are looking back on the years they played with rose tinted glasses. They are also biased. Spillane fails to acknowledge that Kerry's football at times is far from the beautiful game.

The game has evolved and tactics have become hugely significant but surely that's change for the better?

Joe says the Derry lads were embarassed about the way they played last Saturday but were they not equally embarassed last year when Dublin beat them 3-19 to 1-10? A 15 point loss.

One thing that muddies the water is Spillanes opinion on skills declining. The players nowadays are as good if not better at all skills.

Dirty Dingus McGee

average_runner wrote: »

Direct football will always beat the defensive game.

It won't and in my opinion it plays right into the hands of the blanket defence.

Say a player gets the ball in the half back line and starts to move forward he's looking up and and sees his options and sees the 6 forwards are being marked by 12 defenders (most teams who play a blanket their players retreat into defence extremely quickly) this means that a long ball in near the full forward line is almost certainly going to favour the defence as one of the defenders just has to break the ball and the superior numbers will mop up possession.The only way a long ball would be successful is if it hits the forward in the middle of his chest where he doesn't even have to jump and he can quickly turn a kick the ball over the bar, but doing something like that is almost impossible.

The best example (or worst depending on your point of view) of the blanket defence was Donegal v Dublin in 2011 .In the first half Dublin player a more direct style and kicked a number of balls into their forward line however they were dealt with rather easily by Donegals superior numbers in defence and the pressure they put on the kicker. Dublin only got an upper hand in the game when Kevin McManamon came on and ran hard at the Donegals defence and quick hand passing moves allowed Dublin to break it down somewhat and draw some fouls.Quick handpassing moves and hard running is the way to beat the blanket defence and that is why when a team plays a very defensive style you end up with excessive handpassing.

ciarriaithuaidh

UnitedIrishman wrote: »

Few things:

The game doesn't need to change at all. The issue lies with those playing against the blanket defence and not those employing it. Find a way to beat it - even if that means doing the same. There are always going to be dour games especially at this time of the year but guess what - the two sides playing the most dour styles are likely to be relegated so what benefit has it been to them? Eventually their own fans will vote with their feet or with their voice and something will change. Or their coaches will realise what they are doing is not beneficial to their own team.

The media is so kneejerky its pathetic and I don't understand why anyone decided to listen to such 'visionaries' as Joe Brolly and co. I remember going to games in the mid-90's when Mayo were playing sides and we won 0-8 0-6, 0-10 0-4, 0-7 0-6, 0-9 0-7 in consecutive games. And yet there were no clamours for a radical change in the game. In fact Brolly and co would have you believe these were glory days of GAA - I wasn't old enough to see or remember the so called 'great matches between Meath and Dublin' but watched one of them on TG4 recently and it was absolutely muck. If watching Bernard Flynn taking 10 mins to kick free after free and assaults around the field are your thing then fair enough.

Also I don't remember any media clamouring for change when Donegal faced Tyrone or Mayo faced Tyrone or Derry. Suddenly it becomes a problem when Derry don't (as one writer called it) bend over and lube themselves up for Dublin to have their way with them. As far as I'm concerned any manager that sends his team into a gunfight with that Dublin side matching up man for man is signing his own death warrant. They have exceptional forwards all over including the bench and good attacking backs that I don't think any side in the country could match up to. If anything, if we reached the final this year against Dublin with a gameplan of matching them man for man I'd be calling Connelly and Holmes naive - not saying 'oh well fair play for playing the right way'. No All Ireland has an asteriks beside it saying 'Let it be known the runners up played in the right spirit'.

Another aspect that annoys me, again this relates to the media, where was the objections last year when Kerry played the same way? For almost the entirety of the season they played a cynical blanket defensive brand of football but seemingly are absolved of any criticism. Apparently you must be from one of those northern counties to receive the same scrutiny.

And lastly, everyone calling for the game to change.. how exactly are you planning to do that when our refs can't even get basic decisions right? One or two mentions - not on here - of forcing sides to have 2-3 players in the opposite half. Your gonna need about 2 or 3 more officials per game and there at club games I'm at there aren't even linesman.

In summary, the game will come good in the summer and if not then I'm still not going to worry. Everyone thought it was the end of the world when Tyrone started playing the way they did winning their first All Ireland.

Sorry, but the bit in bold is utter nonsense. Kerry played very defensively in the AI Final. They did NOT play that game throughout the year and I wouldn't think anyone who actually watched the games needed that explained to them.
In case anyone needs reminding of the other major championship games from last year involving Kerry:

Munster final: Kerry 0-24 Cork 0-12
AI 1/4 final: Kerry 1-20 Galway 2-10
Semi final: Kerry 1-16 Mayo 1-16
(Replay Kerry 3-16 Mayo 3-13)

Hardly indicative of "cynical blanket defence" really is it?

robbiezero

ciarriaithuaidh wrote: »

Sorry, but the bit in bold is utter nonsense. Kerry played very defensively in the AI Final. They did NOT play that game throughout the year and I wouldn't think anyone who actually watched the games needed that explained to them.
In case anyone needs reminding of the other major championship games from last year involving Kerry:

Munster final: Kerry 0-24 Cork 0-12
AI 1/4 final: Kerry 1-20 Galway 2-10
Semi final: Kerry 1-16 Mayo 1-16
(Replay Kerry 3-16 Mayo 3-13)

Hardly indicative of "cynical blanket defence" really is it?

Kerry did what they had to do in terms of last years All-Ireland. Any other tactics would have been ridiculous given what had happened to Dublin.
Play Donegal at their own game and let the better football team win which it did. We saw Dublin do the same against Derry once they copped Derry were parking the bus.
Kerry and Dublin are certainly not the problem, unfortunately the way these top teams are going to deal with the blanket defence is to match which looks like it is going to make for a lot more poor spectacles like last years AI and Saturday night. Far too early to be talking of change though unless we get an absolute plethora of these games in the championship.

robbiezero

Tombo2001 wrote: »

I'd question that one.

They didn't hit that many wides. The fact is that they were defending a lead until late in the game. They weren't trying to attack.

I'd have thought Dublins shooting was far worse on the night.

And bear in mind, windy evening, rain sheeting down, crowd booing them.....hostile conditions in more way than one. Derry did a pretty decent job given what they set out to do; they were still in the game with five minutes to go.

When Derry had to come and chase the game to try and win it in the last 10 minutes, they didn't have a clue. They will not win games with blanket defence alone, it just means they will not get hammered.
Dublins shooting was far worse indeed, but they made way more chances and on a dry night would likely have won far more comfortably. It would have to be worrying for Derry how little chances they made and how easily the game was gone from them once Dublin went a point up.

UnitedIrishman

ciarriaithuaidh wrote: »

Sorry, but the bit in bold is utter nonsense. Kerry played very defensively in the AI Final. They did NOT play that game throughout the year and I wouldn't think anyone who actually watched the games needed that explained to them.
In case anyone needs reminding of the other major championship games from last year involving Kerry:

Munster final: Kerry 0-24 Cork 0-12
AI 1/4 final: Kerry 1-20 Galway 2-10
Semi final: Kerry 1-16 Mayo 1-16
(Replay Kerry 3-16 Mayo 3-13)

Hardly indicative of "cynical blanket defence" really is it?

Watch back every game they played last year. They played with a double sweeper in their backline. If a team broke at pace against them they pulled and fouled in order to stop the breakaway and delayed the free kick being taken. Mostly without punishment. They did it to Donegal and Mayo and for large parts against Cork, they didn't need to against Galway.

My point isn't that they are wrong to do it - its that they remain the media darlings and the great proponent of everything that's good about Gaelic football while those in the north are the evil ones trying to ruin everything. Its cuteness when Kerry do it and negative and disgraceful when others do.

keane2097

UnitedIrishman wrote: »

Watch back every game they played last year. They played with a double sweeper in their backline.

Those was the wing backs.