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GEELONG coach Chris Scott says AFL players are getting away with “flicking” the ball rather than conventionally handballing, due to an encouragement to move the ball quickly in the modern game.


The Bulldogs made a big impression with their rapid-fire handballs to clear the ball from congestion during their run to the 2016 premiership.

Scott said the definition of a handball looked to have changed in recent years, with the Dogs in particular known for their tendency to “flick” the ball around, and that other AFL coaches needed to adapt to deal with that.

“Even the way the rules have evolved, or not evolved in this situation, what constituted a handball five years ago is different to now,” Scott said on Fox Footy’s AFL 360.

“I hope this doesn’t sound disparaging towards the Bulldogs ... it doesn’t really have anything to do with them except they’re really good exponents of it.

“But it’s just the lawmakers and the umpires are saying ‘we can’t tell if you’re throwing it or not, so we’re going to give you the benefit of the doubt, unless we’re sure you did throw it.’”

Scott said it was difficult to pick up on whether some handballs were actually throws, even on slow motion vision.

The Geelong coach said he felt teams were encouraged to move the ball on quickly, which facilitated those looking to flick the ball out of contests.

“It’s hard for the umpires ... we’ve slowed it down at times and even in slow motion you can’t tell,” he said.

“It’s not a criticism of the umpires either, but coaches shouldn’t try to influence the rules too much in my view, but we do have a responsibility to get with the program.

“So that’s one part of their game where I think teams are saying ‘yeah, you can flick it around and clear the congestion’ even if it’s sort of throwing it over your head or tunnel balling it.

“I think the lawmakers have implicitly encouraged teams to do it because we want the ball to clear the congestion or get it going — it doesn’t matter how it gets out, just get it out of there.”

Scott said coaches needed to learn from what the best teams did well, with the Bulldogs’ handball game one example of a clever, if small, point of difference.
“I think you’re not being professional in your position if you don’t analyse what the good teams are doing,” Scott said on Fox Footy’s AFL 360.

“I think it’s a little different when you have a team like say, Hawthorn, that were for a period clearly the best team in the comp.

“The Bulldogs deserved what they got but they did finish seventh, it wasn’t as if they had this competitive advantage that just blew everyone away.

“But that part of their game was relatively unique.”