It's the right decision but you can't change a rule in the last round of the season. It's amateur hour
Printable View
So...... Riewoldt is penalised twice in their forward 50, Dimma cracks the s**** and the AFL change the rule 48 hours later.
Luke Dahl is kicked in the head, there isn’t even a free kick paid and the AFL take a year to amend the rule.
Riewoldt is another dickhead who sticks his foot out when going for a mark. How about bending the knee. No matter what you say kicking someone in the back is pretty painful.
When Dahlhaus was kicked in the face, Greene should have been reported and it would have stopped there instead of changing rules a year later.
This is my very point about this whole thread, the AFL don't think things through.
I agree with this.
Riewoldt has no business using his boot to create separation and anyone who flies with studs up is not considering a ball first approach.
The natural tendency when you jump is to raise a knee for elevation. Raising a foot limits the elevation.
Occasionally you see someone like Howe jump high and have his feet in the back, but generally he has just jumped high and the contact is incidental.
This rule should've been brought in years ago to combat tactics akin to Jarrad Waite's marking technique - studs in the back is just not on.
Jack had his foot on the lower part of his opponent back - not as bad as Waite's previous efforts, and can live with an interpretation where that's not a free....but can live with it being a free as well.
Instead of asking for calm, the league gave into Hardwick's rant - terribly reactive crap from the governing body.
For mine an incidental boot in the back whilst taking a high mark is fine, when the leg is approaching horizontal I think a free is warranted. There is simply no need to stick your leg straight out like that. I have a scar on my back from backing back into an opponent who decided to stick their leg straight out to stop me.
It's a shambles.
What is stopping players now from simply planting one foot and kicking the other out?
I also question how is the Toby Greene scenario going to remain a free kick? The AFL continually introduces grey areas to the rules and then wonders why the game is A) impossible to adjudicate and B) impossible for outsiders to understand.
Boots in the back are pretty cheap and a way to make up ground when you’re late to a contest. Don’t really see why they should be treated differently to a push in the back, it’s just as unrefined and lacking in skill.
Well they know they made a mistake with the runner, another rule blunder by the AFL:
THE NEW AFL RULE CHANGE TO SET BE TRIALED DURING PRE-SEASON
"WARNING"
I know Woofers are probably sick of me carrying on about rule changes, but if you are not interested, it is ok don't read on.
"READ ON IF YOU HATE RULE CHANGES"
There is some talk about the AFL trying to speed up the game and go back to more on the bench and make some more changes to other rules. I tell you now it will not work the way they want it to work. You can't change the game to what you want it to look like through rules, because in the end you have a product that no longer resembles football.
We have lost many things in the game, like bouncing the ball around the ground, the goal square and the kick out, third man up, use of runners (all unique to our game) and introduced some rules for no apparent reason. I am yet to hear one rule change that has enhanced the game in the last 30 years.
I just hope the AFL doesn't decide to use COVID-19 as an excuse to push things through. Already we are down to 16 minute quarters which makes no sense to me.
Be prepared, they are going to change the game again.
Agree BAD.
They need to stop trying to influence the style of play, with a view of micro managing the product. It's madness.
I don't have a problem with changes to things like time on, interchange v substitutes, list sizes and to an extent even the league structure. That's theirs to piss fart around with and shape the league as a product. So long as they are considered and mature in their decision making and don't keep going back and forth. It should have a foundation in being a fair and equitable competition.
WHY POTENTIAL RULE CHANGES "MAKE NO SENSE"
AFL rule changes are back on the agenda.
On Wednesday the Herald Sun revealed the AFL is welcoming ideas — including reducing 18-man teams to 16.
It makes absolutely no sense.
Perhaps Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson’s influence and power over the AFL has become too much.
On the eve of the season, Clarkson joined Garry and Tim on SEN Breakfast and made these surprising comments.
"We probably have to consider pulling some levers in the game. One of the charters of the game was we wanted to retain 18 v 18," the Hawks coach said.
"If defences have become so sophisticated at being able to use 18 men to defend, I wonder if they could defend as well with 16? Becuase one of the things that we wnated to retain in our game was high scoring.
"In terms of the charter of the game, we don't want to be like soccer, we want to be able to score."
In that same week back in March, former Fremantle and St Kilda coach and one of the smartest minds in the game, Ross Lyon, echoed Clarkson’s comments.
Speaking to The Age before round one, Lyon admitted he would "go to 16 players because everything works on a string. If you take out two moving pieces, it's going to be harder for some of those defensive mechanisms to stay intact. They'd break down a hell of a lot quicker."
"The easiest way would be to take the wingers off, so you know, just play with 16," added Lyon, who has moved back to Melbourne from Perth.
I was staggered at the time by both Lyon and in particular Clarkson’s comments. I’m even more surprised the AFL would entertain messing with the game and its fabric so drastically.
What a ridiculous overreaction that move would be.
The thought of AFL becoming a 16-a-side game with no wingmen doesn’t make sense and there are a host of subtle and minor tweaks that we should look at before making this giant leap.
Slashing the length of quarters to 16 and a half minutes plus time-on is extreme enough and also makes no sense considering the compromised season fixture will look largely normal with standard break between games for each team.
I’m yet to understand why this is a good change as we look to return to a largely normal looking season, minus the crowds.
The game was in great shape, players are stronger, faster, more explosive, better all-round athletes and fiercer tacklers than in any previous era.
The AFL and world sport in general have been dealt its most challenging blow, but that doesn’t mean we need scrap all that was good before this disease hit.
And we certainly don’t need the game’s best coach telling us otherwise. Has Clarkson’s influence at AFL House become unhealthy?
I have a two-step solution that would increase scoring, limit congestion and increase one-on-one contests.
Slash interchange rotations. I’d like to see a limit of 40. 10 per quarter only. It’s obvious, fatigue the players so they are physically incapable of applying the frantic pressure and defensive systems we see in the current game. Skills will improve due to the lack of pressure; congestion will ease and scoring will increase.
Implement last possession out of bounds free-kick. It’s been a raging success at SANFL level and something the AFL has been briefed by the SANFL on and is already considering.
Someone who doesn't want to change the rules writes an article suggesting rule changes.
Amazing.
I'm certainly not against rule changes or amendments and believe changes like the automatic play on after a point is scored, limiting 4 players in the middle after a goal, separating the ruckman after a goal, limiting the IC changes plus a few others have been positives for the game but Cornes touches on the same concerns I have.
The never waste a crisis approach the AFL is taking to shorten quarters, considering a 16 v 16 game and extending the finals series are just bullshit opportunistic moves to appease the TV companies.
They'll go too far one day and lose a lot of supporters
The whole deliberate OOB is just BS and now this.
AFL just can't help themselvesQuote:
AFL greats Ross Lyon and Matthew Lloyd have slammed a potential change for spoiling the ball in season 2021 and beyond. According to veteran AFL journalist Caroline Wilson, the AFL commission have discussed a change in the rules which would see defenders spoiling a ball out of bounds being a free kick to the opposition for a deliberate out of bounds.
It is a move designed to speed up the game with Wilson believing a number of top level commission members are in favour.
Huh? If anything that should be the only way a throw in occurs. I get the thinking behind last touch from a kick or handball resulting in a kick to the opposition but a spoil should always be throw in. How hard do they want to make it for defenders?
Also this wouldn’t speed up the game. Defenders spoiling would occur in forward 50 so all that’s going to happen is a shot on goal. No one wants to see more goals from free kicks.
Why stop there?
Be bold AFEL and mandate that defenders must play with their legs tied together and both arms cuffed behind their backs.
Bump for Aza
Thanks BAD!!! That’s the one.
AFL is looking to cap interchange further.
https://coupler.foxsports.com.au/api...mpression=true
Well finally the AFL has now officially lost the plot.
Interchange cut for AFL, second-tier comp to trial new zone rule in 2021
The AFL has cut interchange next year to 75 from 90 and will trial a rule in the new second-tier competition requiring teams to reset in zones at every boundary throw-in and kick-in as well as every centre bounce.
The league has also tweaked several other rules for the AFL competition next year, with players standing the mark to receive a 50-metre penalty for any lateral movement before "play on" is called.
Players on the mark at kick-ins will also have to move five metres futher back – giving the player kicking in more time and space to play on.
The radical trial of more zones in the second tier competition will require a minimum of three pairs of players to be in each of the two 50m arcs at boundary throw-ins and kick-ins.
The existing rule, which requires teams to break into six pairs of players in each zone for centre bounces, will remain and run in tandem with the new trial.
The move for a half-reset of player positions at the boundary throw-ins and kick-ins is a significant next step in the push to declutter the game.
The AFL said in a statement that the "officiating umpire will not recommence play until all players are in position. Where a team fails to comply at a boundary throw-in, a free kick shall be awarded to the player of the opposing team at the point of the stoppage. Where the attacking team fails to comply at a kick in, a 50-metre penalty shall be awarded to the defending team."
It is as yet unknown how long players will have to get back in position.
Ball-ups are not included under the new rule.
An email to clubs from the AFL on Wednesday advising of the rule said the game would have to wait for players to be in position before it resumed, but said details of how it will be umpired would be communicated later.
Just for you BAD
AFL announces rule changes for 2021
The AFL will slash interchange rotations from 90 to 75 a match next year in a bid to bust open ugly congestion.
AFL football operations boss Steve Hocking announced the change on Wednesday afternoon.
The league is also looking at trialling new zone rules in its new second-tier competition as it looks to open up the game.
Teams will still be allowed four interchange players.
The league will also crack down on players standing the mark.
“If the defending player moves off the mark in any direction prior to ‘play on’ being called, a 50-metre penalty will apply,” AFL football operations boss Steve Hocking announced.
Players kicking the ball in from a behind will also be given more space.
Next year the mark will be set at 15m from the kick-in line — an increase of five metres from last year.
Looking ahead to next year, the league is still working on the length of the season and how the fixturing will work.
But quarters will return to 20 minutes plus time-on, following this year’s COVID-striken season of 18 rounds and 16-minute quarters plus time on.
In the league-second-teir comp, which will replace the VFL and NEAFL next season, a minimum of three players from each team will have to be inside their team’s attacking 50m arc at all kick-ins and boundary throw-ins.
Collingwood forward Mason Cox took to Twitter on Wednesday afternoon to protest the changes.
“Any chance we could keep the rules the same for once?” the American posted
“It’s been hard enough learning it from scratch much less it changing every year.
“Being an umpire would be a nightmare. Every year there are more changes to AFL than any other sport in the world I feel like.”
A league mandating increased player fatigue is a league bereft of answers, often to questions nobody's posing but themselves.
Not to mention their endless appetite for galling pedantry. Just scrap players on the mark altogether.
Sigh. There are so many existing levers that City Hall could use to reduce congestion and increase the speed of ball movement (and then increase scoring) but all they do is tinker around the edges and make the umpire's job even more difficult with increased subjective grey area adjudications like this 1m protected zone on the mark BS.
I loved the justification of making "more Dustin Martin moments". You could play the game with 11 a side and a round ball and Ronaldo couldn't make more Dustin Martin moments.
Apparently Steve Hocking listened to people and made considered changes..........man I hate being grin-*!*!*!*!ed by this guy.
What kind of dickhead thinks making an already complex game more technical is a way to improve it?
I would have thought fatigue would not only add to congestion but also increase the risk of injury.
If a player gets tired isn't natural to slow the game down and hold onto the ball and chip it around.
I'd call them wankers but its an insult to a wanker.