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Congestion. Congestion. Congestion. Congestion. It’s everywhere. On our streets. In our arteries. And in our favourite game.
Figures suggest there has been a substantial increase in the number of throw-ins and ball-ups, rising from 48 in 2005 to 74 in the season to date. Scoring is down, and the two are being conflated. Fair enough too, I think.
This piece isn’t to pass judgement, or to make the case for action versus inaction.
As we say in the biz, there’s momentum building behind this most vexing policy issue, right across the league. The case has been made – the people want change.
Like the fixture issue last year, there’s a sense of momentum building. But unlike the fixture issue, the AFL doesn’t have a broadcast partner to satisfy as it develops its response to congestion.
The Legends Night, otherwise known as the Grumpy Old Men Segment, on AFL 360 contained a frustrating discussion that ended in the talking heads bemoaning that things just aren’t like they used to be.
It was a bit of a train wreck in the end, but there were a few worthy talking points. Specifically, David King suggested that the best course of action would be for the AFL to develop 10 proposals, bring together a range of stakeholders, and pick one.
King had an idea of his own: eliminate ball-ins between the forward 50 arcs. The thinking behind this would be to effectively legislate the long kick down the line out of the game. It’s got merit, for sure, but is something of a radical change.
Another proposal is to introduce zones. Not quite like netball – can you imagine if it was like netball – but legislating to reduce the number of players allowed around a stoppage in general play. I see the merit, once again, but think the battle has been lost on this one before it’s begun. Stick ‘AFL’ and ‘zones’ into Twitter for a look at what the punters think.
That makes two. I’d like to make it three.
When I approach problems like this, I like to think about how I would respond as an economist. When you’re dealing with situations where there is direct competition and both sides are simultaneously trying to maximise their chance of winning and maximise their opponent’s chance of losing, I’m inclined to ditch tweaks to the rules and regulations.
The first rule of economics is that incentives matter. People respond to inducements, and this is the way forward to address congestion in the game.
Ticky-tacky rule changes, like reducing the interchange cap from 120 to 80 or introducing zones to remove players from the contest, are just creating more opportunities for tacticians to respond. For a game that started out with almost no rules in the 1800s, our obsession with incrementalism is something to behold.
The biggest issue with congestion is a mass of players around the ball. The incentive to do this is obvious: the more people you have around the ball, the less chance your opponent has to get their hands on the ball first and get things moving. This creates an incentive for your opponent to send further numbers to the contest, and so on.
We see it now, particularly when teams are defending their back 50. There’ll be 36 players within 50 metres of the ball, with the offensive side setting up in such a way as to try and stop the opposition defenders from getting the ball away.
This leaves the defending team’s attacking half of the ground completely vacant. The current trend is for teams to try and run the ball out of the back 50 on the counterattack in an effort to exploit that space. Port Adelaide did it well in 2013 and 2014, and West Coast are doing it really well this season. And don’t we love those fast breaks?
Most other sides are content to be more defensive, play the possession game, and move the ball incrementally up the ground. After all if you have the ball then your opponent doesn’t, and you can only score if you have the ball.
Regardless of the mode, there is very rarely, if ever, players more than 50 metres ahead of the play these days – and if there is it’s generally a defender zoning off to stop the fast break.
What if there was a way to improve the incentive for sides to leave players in their attacking half, without the dramatic rule changes associated with King’s proposal or the dreaded zones? And it could not only lead to an increase in scoring, but a return to the big marking days of yester year? And it could – I’m not certain on this one – help the defensive side clear the ball in the event of a kick in?
No, its not some kind of voodoo magic. That’s just silly.
This, sports fans, is the Expanded Goal Square.
What if the goal square was increased in size from this.
To… this!
What I’ve tried to chart here is what the square would look like if it were three times as wide and twice as long. That would see the size of the goal square increase from 58 square metres to 346 square metres. All other rules associated with the goal square would apply:
• An offensive mark taken, or free kick conceded, in the goal square would result in the mark being set at the tip of the square
• Kick-outs must be taken from inside the square, with the defensive mark set a few metres from the edge of the line
Nothing else changes, other than the space available to take a mark that all but guarantees a goal for the attacking team is six times the size.
All of a sudden, it makes much more sense to leave players in the attacking zone; the incentive to stack the defensive deck is reduced substantially.
Teams moving into their attacking half will now prioritise getting the ball into a positon on the ground that allow for a deeper kick inside 50 – those pesky 50-metre arc stoppages that end up looking like an Under-10s rugby game are reduced.
And, defending teams have upwards of a 10-metre advantage when moving the ball out of their defensive zone on the kick in. That little outlet kick to the back pocket is now a no-no, too, given the judgement of the length of a kick is taken from the edge of the square.
There’s no doubt there are some negative side effects that I don’t see. One that jumps out at me is that we may reduce the number of skilful banana kicks and the like from forward pockets.
So that’s my contribution. What do you think? Reckon I should send it to AFL House? Have you got a better idea? Let me know in the comments!