Hurling’s new rules were trialled last night. How did it go?

Rain comes in a variety of bright colours now, but the type that lashed the hurlers of MTU and UCC on Thursday evening was old fashioned black. Their match in Division One of the Higher Education League was the latest vessel for hurling’s new rules and in the circumstances, it was remarkably free of incidents or accidents.

It is much too soon to make firm judgements, but opinion never pauses for breath. There was groaning in the stand as the referee Simon Stokes repeatedly and correctly penalised fouled handpasses. But if reform of the handpass is going to be achieved, there is bound to be a spate of on-the-spot fines. Hurlers have been parking on double yellow lines with impunity for far too long.

MTU were penalised eight times in the first half for making a handpass without a clear striking action, but their best player, the Cork senior Barry Walsh, made a visible effort to abide by the new directive: every time he handpassed the ball there was murky daylight between his hand and the sliotar.

Only one free was awarded for consecutive hand passes, which was a remarkably quick adjustment by the players. But in any other era of the game, nobody would have even considered short passing in these conditions. One of the UCC mentors eventually implored one of his half backs to “get rid of it,” but modern players are not wired in that way. One short pass usually starts a sequence.

There was one incident near the sideline in the first half where the consecutive hand pass rule had an unintended consequence. The UCC corner forward Darragh Verling controlled a poor hand pass with a sublime piece of skill that was instantly acknowledged by the crowd.

But he was near the sideline and closely marked. Another UCC player made a support run which was crying out for a quick hand pass but in abiding by the rules Verling tried to make a stick pass instead. With not enough room to make an unimpeded swing, he was hooked and the ball went to ground. If hard cases make bad law, here was your example.

Under the trial rules, every puckout must pass the 45 metre line, with three forwards and three defenders standing between the 20m line and the 45. What it meant here was that every puckout was driven into the other half of the field and was contested beyond the other 65 metre line.

At this time of the year, third level teams spend very little time training together and it is unlikely that any of the college teams will come up with a funky way of winning a puckout inside their own half. But if this rule comes into force, the elite teams and the finest coaching brains are bound to devise ways of managing their own puckouts without driving the ball 100 metres into an uncertain future.

In the 15 Higher Education League games that are being monitored and tagged by the Hurling Expert Advisory Group over the next couple of weeks, it is unlikely that they will harvest satisfactory feedback on this rule.

The HEAG clearly want the ball to go long from restarts to create more contests for possession, but the elite teams, at club and intercounty level, will balk at that. It is easy to imagine more puckouts driven towards a moving target, 50 or 60 metres away – which clearly carries more risk but might not result in a contest.

Under the experimental rules 65s are now taken from the furthest 65: only one was awarded and it was missed. But the first two-point sideline cut was recorded – given that none was scored in Belfield on Tuesday night and the other games on Thursday evening had later throw-ins.

Mikey Finn played an extraordinary shot to score from outside the 45 metre line, in front of the stand. For a right-hand hurler it would have been easier to score from the other wing, but it was such a pure strike that the ball hardly deviated in the air.

It came at a time in the game, midway through the second half, when MTU were six points down and struggling to stay in the hunt. But the two-pointer gave them an injection of energy, just as it routinely does in Gaelic football now. This experimental rule might have a life.

The trial continues.