WITH the new football season about to take flight at the weekend with the first round of the National League there is little else for a lowly sports hack to do but wonder.

There are better, more qualified men in these pages to offer their opinions on what the League and the GAA season as a whole might hold for Kerry.

Suffice it to say that in many respects it might be a new season but the same old questions apply. Which of the older players' legs will run out on them during the year? Which of the younger talents can break through onto the starting team? Is the individual and collective appetite there for the team to go all the way to the AllIreland Final? How much store will the management place on winning the League?

But there are other imponderables that the less qualified of us can stick our pencils in our ears and wonder about.

The GAA is the gift that keeps on giving, so with January just about kicked to touch we wonder what wil be the playing rule – and the blatant misuse of same – that will clog up the Liveline phone lines this summer.

Two years ago it was the handpass that had players and managers (mostly managers), The Sunday Game pundits and the Man On The Street pulling their hair out over the legality or otherwise of its execution.

Last year the 'square ball' became the buzzword(s) as players, managers, The Sunday Game pundits, the Man On The Street and umpires (mostly umpires) grappled with geometry, trigonometry and the theory of relativity to answer that greatest of GAA trivia questions: if a trees falls in a forest and doesn't make a sound would an umpire raise his hand and inform the referee?

So what will the new bee in the bonnet be this year. Now, we are trying to stir up the hornet's nest here, but what about steps, or over-carrying? You know the rule, the one that says a maximum of four steps can be taken by the player in possession before a solo, and hop or a pass much be executed.

Now, it's pretty obvious that most of the time this rule is not so much bent as buckled, twisted and snapped in two, especially as speedy forwards with short legs hare towards goal with no regard for counting their steps, either silently or out loud.

Now, given that five, six, seven or, indeed, eight uninterrupted steps are taken as widely accepted by players and officials for the most part we are not trying to highlight a problem that is, in fact, not a problem at all right now.

But just as players blithly flung the ball around – underhand, overhand, open-fisted – and passed it off as a handpass until someone clever clogs decided it wasn't a handpass, we are betting that somewhere over the course of the National League or the Championship – it's always the Championship – someone will start counting steps and crying foul.

We can see it now. Devious journalist asks disillusioned manager what did he think of the opposition's match winning goal.

Reporter: A hint of over-carrying there, eh?

Manager: What did ye think yerselves, lads?

Reporter: Ah, looked like 12 or 13 steps from where we were eating our sandwiches.

Manager: Maybe, I'd have to see again on The Sunday Game tonight, but it looked a bit borderline.

And then we all defer to the highest authority that is The Sunday Game panellists.

We can see it now: Kevin Mcstay using the slo-mo camera to count the offending steps, Brolly dismissing it with some legalspeak and O'rourke saying that back in his days there was no such thing as steps.