'Very difficult to be in control of your own kickout' - Kevin Feely talks restarts and the new rules

The kick-out has quickly become one of the most important aspects of any GAA team’s plan in 2026 with the new FRC rules facilitating 30-40 aerial contests per game from those restarts. Kildare captain Kevin Feely has been one of the best fielders in the country for several years and he has had his say on how things have changed since he began fetching possession in lár na páirce.

“It's completely different. It's not even similar to what it was when I started, it's a different kind of game,” Feely said. “So obviously with the old rules, the recent old rules, you're maybe contesting three or four long kick-outs a game and now it's closer to 30-40, I love it. We have a lot of lads on the panel that absolutely love that side of things.

“But it's way harder to win your own kick-out now than it used to be and that's kind of forced teams and coaches to come up with a lot more innovative ways of winning your own ball. Watching other games and within our own games you're seeing so many different tactics being used to try and secure primary possession and particularly against good big zonal presses which make it really, really difficult.”

The restart from the goalkeeper has been a sore point for Kildare this year with Feely’s injury absence leaving a major gap in aerial strength in the middle of the field for Kildare. The Athy man is confident that Kildare players relish the number of contests, but they are yet to turn that motivation into a convincing presence in midfield. At a time when control is priority number one across many major sports, the 50:50 nature of a high ball into the sky has become something of a headache for coaches across the country.

Feely added, “Certainly last year a lot of coaches would have struggled with that lack of control that was happening, but I think everyone has moved on from it now and has accepted that it's going to be very difficult to be that in control of your own kickout now and they've adjusted the expected numbers of how many kickouts you're going to win now and usually if you're winning 55 or 60% plus of your own ball that's an excellent starting point. 

“You just want to make sure it doesn't get below the 50% mark and once you're in that zone you’re generally going to be okay.”

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This transition in the rules has also created other issues, as it often does, with pockets of the pitch looking something akin to a ruck when the ball is floated into the air from the goalkeeper with the likes of Feely and other prominent jumpers being hindered by blocking forces.

“That's progressed even from when I started. There wasn't that level of physical contact or screening or blocking happening in and around the middle. It tended to be more often than not a 1v1 battle for the ball in the air and that's very much different now. Every single team in the country is looking to screen or block the opposition main jumpers and allow their jumpers a free go at it, and then other teams are trying to stop their screeners from screening our jumpers,” Feely explained.

“So that's where the scrums happen, I think, is from people trying to screen and people trying to stop other people screening and then it can turn into a little bit of a maul. But I think our teams will continue to do that and there's probably a little bit of a grey area in the rules in terms of what's allowed from a screening and blocking point of view. Maybe something for FRC to look at in terms of tidying up what should and shouldn't be allowed that way. But I have absolutely no issue with any of that. There's ways of fighting through that and ways of working around that and you just have to make sure that you're good enough to adapt to it and react to it as it happens.”

Do you feel like you're more targeted as one of the main fielders? 

Feely replied, “Every team's got fielders that are getting the same level of treatment. If there's two, six-foot three or four lads in the team they're not going to be allowed to jump at the ball and that's just something you have to accept.

“Now I was probably more frustrated with it last year but now I see that it’s happening to everyone, I can kind of accept it and just figure out different ways to secure the ball.”

The kick-out is just one of the many major evolutions in Gaelic football over the past two years, but the Kildare skipper thinks there is still plenty of variety left in the game, even with the adjustments.

He said, “The game is definitely at kind of a halfway point between when I started out and the new rules if that makes sense. There's still an awful lot of possession and there's still slow attacks but it's balanced out with an awful lot more contests on kickouts and then quick attacks off kickouts and I think that balance is actually quite nice now. 

“It's still enjoyable to watch but there's still a tactical element to it as well and it provides a lot more scope for teams to play different game plans and philosophies and I think that's important as well. It'd be a pity if the rules forced every team to play the exact same way so I think having that kind of scope for different styles is important too and it's all been good so far.”