By Forgetmenot
April 19th 2008 @ 2:42am
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Is football getting softer, or just AFL?
People who compare today’s football with the football they saw ‘back in the day’ always seem to bring up how today’s football players aren’t as tough as yesteryear’s heroes.
Recent events such as the Barry Hall incident may have some people thinking I am talking garbage, but most people who saw the game before it went national will insist that players were whacked, punched and pummeled a lot more than they are today.
But are these people also forgetting that Matthew Scarlett and Peter Everitt are still playing, and that Glenn Archer only just retired. We should also not forget Geelong’s new hardman, Ryan Gamble.
All you have to do is to go on to Youtube and search any number of terms such as “the wild men of Carlton” or “VFL 80s”, and you will see the hardmen going about their business.
Today’s football highlights include more in game toughness, such as high flying spectacular knockouts when going for the mark, and players getting ’sandwiched’.
The AFL is only one of the professional football leagues in Australia, and is only one of many football leagues around the country.
It has recognised a need to promote the game to mums who don’t want to see their children getting crunched in a mark, or crash tackled.
Around Australia, the lower level leagues provide football entertainment at a level that rivals that of the 60s and 70s State Leagues.
They provide games that are not over-regulated, and allow a certain degree of physicality. I’m not just talking about the SANFL, WAFL, and VFL.
I’m saying that football leagues such as the Ovens and Murray, the Riverina Football League and the Victorian Football Association, all the way through local football leagues, provide football at levels not seen in the AFL.
There are several reasons for the physicality and toughness being removed from AFL football.
They include the mums not wanting to see little Johnny being tackled hard by bigger James. It is also attributable to factors such as there being more TV cameras and umpires, and a changed view within society.
Other people also say that international expansion plans were greatly affected by people saying the game had “no rules” and was “too violent”.
Whatever the reason for the softness in the AFL, the lower level leagues (or should I say, less recognised) still provide the kind of football that Australians love, the kind that has made the sport the most popular out of all the ball sports in Australia.
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Jarryd said | April 19th 2008 @ 11:24am | Report comment
Forgetmenot, i dont believe that the games are less tough at all. I believe today it is ALOT harder than it was back in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. The players today are bigger, fitter, stronger and faster. The contact that a player recieves out on the field is now 10 times harder than it was back then.
When talking about toughness i think you are referring to all-in-brawls and other fights. But in my opinion, throwing a punch isn’t tough. Running back with the flight of the ball to take a mark when a pack of players each weighing 100 kilos are running towards you is tough.
The league trying to clean up its image was always a matter of time. All codes of football are doing it, rugby league is doing it, so is union. This, however was always going to occur because getting people to watch the game is what keeps it going. Also, you have to realise that players today are getting paid a hell of a lot more than what they were 30 years ago, the sport is more professional and players have more to lose by going up to a bloke and punching him in the back of the head. Team-mates can lose alot of respect for a bloke when he is letting them down by getting rubbed out for 7 weeks for hitting a bloke. Look at Tadhg Kennelly’s comments about barry hall.
Forgetmenot said | April 19th 2008 @ 2:18pm | Report comment
By toughness i was trying to talk about how players seem to give up more easily and and get pushed out the way.
I have only seen videos of the 60’s to 80’s football. I agree that players are fitter and stronger and that a push may seem to weaker purely because both players have a large amount of muscle on them.
Yes all sports seem to be taking the professional non-violent approach, I hope that rugby league doesnt start going very soft as seems to have started happening in the last 3 years.
Jarryd said | April 19th 2008 @ 4:17pm | Report comment
Ok thats fair enough, i do agree with you that sometimes the effort and comitment isnt there, especially in some players. but certain teams like geelong, hawthorn, sydney have built a culture where players get frowned upon when the give up, and that is certainly why these tams are better. They commit to the footy.
I dont think the rugby league is a tough sport now. and i know alot of people will not like that comment. i do like watching rugby league but i think afl is a lot tougher than league. i have played both and although the hits are bigger in nrl players are able to brace themselves for the hits as they are just coming from front on. however in afl it is a 360 degree game. players can hit you from anywhere and it is harder to brace yourself and therefor hurts more…
Spiro Zavos said | April 20th 2008 @ 11:37am | Report comment
The football contact sports are much harder and tougher today than they were in the past. The difference is that there is less foul play on and off the ball than in the past. I don’t call kicking someone’s head in, or punching someone, or smashing them without the ball tough play. It’s dirty play, which is something else again.
You only have to go somewhere near the sidelines of a rugby league or rugby union match to hear the tackles to understand that the game is very much tougher than in the past. In fact I was sitting with John Eales once at a game after he’d retired and we could hear the smacks from the tackles and so on, and he murmured to me: ‘How did I ever play this game?’
The players are bigger, fitter, faster and more powerful. It stands to reason that they’re tougher and tackle and run harder. It’s just that there are fewer cheap shots, which is a good thing.
Michael C said | April 23rd 2008 @ 1:48pm | Report comment
It’s always that confusion of ‘Rough’ with ‘Tough’.
At times I still believe Rugby Union to be the legal roughest of the codes. I don’t necessarily know if that makes it the ‘technically’ toughest and whether that’s an attribute to be celebrated or managed.