Kieran Donaghy spoke to Off The Ball AM expressing his concern over the lack of voices to prevent rule changes in gaelic football.

"Hurling is a warrior game. I heard Tommy Walsh on OTBAM last week say the refs need to stop blowing the whistle so much."

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"There's very little playacting in hurling. It's a very physical game. They get away with more, they are able to do a bit more pulling and dragging when they're tackling they're able to get more pressure on and that gees up the crowd a bit more.

Donaghy says he can see why the hurling supporters came out strongly against the black card as it doesn't work in football. Regardless of the format, he says it "simply doesn't work."

"You still have managers with five minutes left to go, when teams are trying to get back into a game, you still have managers telling fellas to take black cards. As long as that is in, it defeats the purpose of the rule. You are still encouraging cynical play."

"The rule doesn't work and I'd say the hurling people saw that and said: 'no lads, not for us.'

Defenders of the Game

Donaghty feels that football people could take a leaf out of the 'hurling people's' book and be more proactive about defending the sport from those seeking to change the rules regularly.

"Football people right now are sick of rule changes," says Donaghy.

"They are sick of tweaking our game, sick of messing around with it. I'm sick of it. A lot of the fans are sick of it, they just want to be left to play the game that we love since we were young.

"They want to be left get on with it and just get back to it. We are just going over the top with it (rule changes)."