Brian Maher hopes new time-wasting rule plays into Derry City hands

​The International Football Association Board [IFAB] has announced a number of changes to the Laws of the Game including the award of a corner kick if a goalkeeper inside their penalty area controls the ball with their hand[s], arm[s] for more than eight seconds before releasing.

The new directive determines that as well as simply holding the ball, bouncing it or throwing it in the air prior to releasing it will also fall under the guidelines to referees.

The match official will then decide when the 'keeper has control of the ball and the eight seconds begin and 'will visually count down the last five seconds with a raised hand'.

Goalkeepers in the league have little time to get used to the new rule as they were officially informed just 48 hours before their next league fixture and, bizarrely, midway into the season!

Maher, who reached 150 appearances for the club last weekend, could be forgiven for being offended when his photograph was used by the League of Ireland social media account to highlight the new ruling.

However, the Raheny man shrugged it off and states any rule which improves game tempo can only be a good thing if implemented fairly, particularly as it will penalise teams who arrive at Brandywell intent on slowing it down.

"I think it's great, especially the way a lot of teams like to come up and play at Brandywell,” said Maher. “Hopefully it plays to our favour.

"It will be interesting to see how it is implemented because we've heard about these sort of rules before. So let's see. It's interesting that it comes in after 22 games. Usually the league waits for a rule change at the end of the year but we'll only know if it's going to work after a few games or having a proper look at it. If it speeds up the game then that's great.

"The referees just need to be clear with it. It only came out this morning [Wednesday]. I seen a nice photo of myself when I came into training this morning. You can only laugh.

"But it's more important that we just get to know the rule properly and make sure it doesn't bite us. But especially home games, if teams are going to come up and try to slow the game down. The referee was very good last week on it. In the first half straight away the warning came out and hopefully it will play into our hands in games like this."