- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
I have been very lucky to watch AFL footy for a living for the best part of 20 years. I loved the game more than anything as a young boy growing up.
The spectacle as a youngster excited me. The thrilling end-to-end football involving high marks, great skills, and spectacular goals made Aussie Rules so special.
The pressure, hardness and defensive structures, which coaches nowadays are so obsessed with, were certainly there, but players played with risk. Today they seem nervous more often than not to take the game on.
It’s not the same game now, with teams implored to minimise the damage and make the contest as ugly as possible to conjure a win.
The first ever Anzac Day match between Essendon and Collingwood was on Fox Footy the other night and it was fantastic to see it again.
I had forgotten what a great match it was, yet today’s AFL senior coaches are not a fan of that style of footy.
Today’s brand, which has been described as Under-9s footy, is what the coaches want. But it’s very hard to watch.
It’s become too technical, where rules have completely eliminated flair and instinctive actions.
There are just too many awful packs around the ball, with both forward lines vacant if the contest is in the middle of the ground.
It’s been flagged during the week, in many debates on where the game is at and where it might be headed, of new laws being introduced. One suggestion is to make sure there are at least two players of each team in both sides’ forward fifties at all times, no matter where the ball is.
They have that in place in the under-18 competition in Victoria and youngsters at junior level are taught to play a position. It’s certainly an idea that has merit, and one that the AFL should consider.
The AFL teams are released every Thursday night for the next round, with players pencilled in for every position. But why bother when on most occasions players don’t line up there.
Clubs may as well just release a squad of 25 in numerical order, as basically you have midfielders of varying shapes and sizes taking on each match.
In the 1980s and early ’90s, when VFL and AFL football in my opinion was at its best, you were guaranteed of outstanding one-on-one battles. Match-ups between players such as Doug Hawkins and Robert Flower or North Melbourne’s Keith Greig up against Hawthorn powerhouse Robert Dipierdomenico on the wing were commonplace.
Essendon champion Tim Watson would go toe to toe with Carlton star Craig Bradley and whoever played better would win the battle. There was an element of tagging, especially at Essendon with Kevin Sheedy giving Shane Heard that role, but generally players would play offensive football on each other in the midfield and just try and beat their man.
Today, the game is so tactically driven because clubs have anywhere between six and ten assistant coaches. They all have specific roles to undertake so that it appears many players have been turned into robots.
I have seen an average of two games so far every weekend in the early stages of this season and most of them have been disappointing spectacles.
The skill errors, whether under pressure or not, have been embarrassing. When they occur as unforced errors, which is too often, it may have a lot to do with players being worried that they may incur the coach’s wrath if they make a mistake.
Obviously, if you take that mindset of uncertainty and nervousness into a match, the errors will come regularly.
I know Geelong never won a flag under Malcolm Blight between 1989 and 1994, but their style of play was superb.
The Cats didn’t quite get the right mix of attack and defence like Ross Lyon’s St Kilda team. But Lyon still hasn’t put in place the right attacking measures at Fremantle to support his manic defensive game plan and win a premiership.
Lyon’s attitude is all about restricting the opposition to win, and no coach in the game today has a better win-loss record than the Fremantle boss. But if you had a choice of watching the Dockers and the Saints play under Lyon or attending a Geelong game with Blight in charge, it’s a no-brainer as to which queue you would line up in.
Who’s in your ultimate team? Pick the best team and compete with other fans for daily prizes on Draftstars. For the best odds on the game try out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Think. Is this a bet you really want to place? Set a deposit limit.