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Experienced football purists often have plenty of criticisms of the modern game of Australian football.
Many take umbrage towards the constant developments of the sport and brand the current game as unrecognisable to the one they grew up so fondly with.
They miss the dominant full-forwards, parochial supporter bases at home grounds, and prevalence of one-on-one contests across the park.
And while that is perfectly understandable, I do question those that claim “football was tougher back in the day”.
This is not just talking about the elite level here, I refer to all standards of football across state leagues and country level.
Was it really tougher back in the glory days? Or are these people looking back on it with rose-coloured glasses?
I do concede that elite-level football is less sniperish than it used to be, with the presence of match-day cameras picking up any off-the-ball hits. That was not a concern for players back in the day and it was common to see blokes get ‘levelled up’ behind the play.
But that’s not really what toughness is about is it?
With advancements in training players are bigger, stronger, fitter and faster than what they ever have been, and that has filtered down to lower levels of football.
A rapid increase in interchange rotations also means that players are fresher when out on the ground.
It does not take a genius to work out that this results in harder hits around the contest and when the ball is there to be won.
Although the bump is essentially outlawed, tackling is an aspect of the game that has improved substantially over the years. There are less traditional one-on-one contests these days but there are always going to be collisions in a game of football.
By saying the game was tougher back in the day you are showing a great disrespect to modern hard man such as Luke Hodge and Joel Selwood, and the recently retired Jonathan Brown and Beau Waters.
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