When it was first introduced the new sliding law in the AFL created plenty of debate, with many against it claiming it’s not in the spirit of the game and changes the way players at junior level were taught how to play the game.
Well! We are now at the halfway mark of the season and the law doesn’t seem any more popular than it was three weeks ago.
In my opinion, it’s just not working.
It was particularly obvious in the wet conditions last week on the Gold Coast in the clash between the Suns and North Melbourne, where a Suns player was penalised for diving on the ball and again doing what should be automatic – see ball, get ball.
However, he was penalised for sliding into the ankles of his opponent.
Later in the game when North was making a comeback, which eventually came to nothing, a North player should have received a free kick for kicking in danger after going to ground to try and smother his opponent’s kick and win the footy.
But he didn’t, with the sliding rule once again, as far as the umpires were concerned, being a key factor in why that free was ignored.
It seems the AFL is determined to keep this law in place but why not dispense with it in the wet, when conditions are obviously much different and the ball spends most of the time on the ground?
We know why the rule was brought in to stop those serious high impact leg or ankle injuries from occurring, with the one suffered by Gary Rohan of the Swans always cited as the main example for it’s introduction.
This will be said constantly the longer this debate continues, but the new sliding law will stop players from going in to win the all important contested footy first, if they can’t avoid having to slide in and get it.
I understand that players will be taught how to keep the feet better in those sorts of contests and eventually it will more than likely become second nature not to slide in across your opponent’s path and risk serious injury. But it will take away one of those many wonderful spectacles of our great game, watching numerous players coming from different directions to get control of the footy.
Remember – Australian Rules football is the classic collision sport played at high and manic speed, and we love it.
When North’s Lindsay Thomas had his eyes firmly on the footy, sliding in and making contact with Sydney’s Gary Rohan it led to Rohan’s severely broken leg and cost him probably at least two years of football.
But it was an unfortunate accident, and Thomas was just doing what he was told to do and taught when growing up learning the game in regional South Australia and that is win your own footy when the pressure is on in an intensely contested situation.
As we know, players are so well-drilled and they have learnt pretty quickly to adapt.
But there have been examples in the first half of the season and no doubt will be in the second half of their raw instincts getting in the way and unfortunately that means a free kick against.
To be as stringent as the umpires were on Saturday night in the wet (and I know they are only doing what they are told) in rewarding frees for sliding was ludicrous.
The umpires have been praised over the past month or so for letting the play go and reducing the number of frees awarded, which seems to be an instruction of the AFL’S new General Manager of Football Operations, Mark Evans.
But to me the sliding rule is a thorn in their side and will continue to be unless changes are made.
We obviously don’t want the biff and the behind the play punches and hits, which were so much a part of the game 30 and 40 years ago, but injury can be tolerated if it’s caused in the pursuit of playing the game properly and it’s accidental.
That’s what winning the contested footy is all about and to me it’s still a great sight watching a player put his nose over the footy, sliding in, with an opponent in the other direction, getting possession first under extreme pressure and then shooting a handpass out to a teammate on the outside.
It’s another example of how much the game has changed and so dramatically in recent years and in many cases not for the best.
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