Shot in the clock: How the AFL fixes every problem

You know, if I had to sum up the AFL – the organisation, that is, not the frolicsome little athletic competition it oversees – in one word, that word would be: responsive.

The Australian Football League is, without doubt, one of the most responsive leagues in the history of the world. And by “responsive”, I mean responsive to the needs of stakeholders, responsive to the demands of fans: responsive, in a nutshell, to what lovers of the great game of football are telling them they want.

The latest news from the AFL’s crack Responsiveness Unit is that the goalkicking shot clock rules have been adjusted. This is incredibly welcome news to all of us in the footy-loving community who have been clamouring with increasing volume and urgency for just such an adjustment.

It comes as quite a relief that the days of players taking up their entire allotment of seconds to take a shot at goal in order to run down the clock are over.

The new, simplified, streamlined system will bring greater fairness and clarity to the crucial business of the shot clock: the clock will now not be shown on the scoreboard in the last two minutes of each quarter, meaning that the only way they could possibly use the shot clock tactically to wind down game time is by a combination of knowing that there are less than two minutes left because the shot clock isn’t on the scoreboard, and the runner telling them how much time is left in the game as usual.

Also, the umpire will be able to hurry up any player he considers to be deliberately running the clock down, thus fulfilling the league’s requirement that all rules should not only be obeyed, but also at times not obeyed if the umpire thinks it’s a bit unfair to be obeying them at that specific moment in time.

I think you’ll agree that it’s about time this was clarified.

And it really does show how flexible and adaptable and willing to listen the AFL is, that they’ve gone through this process. At every turn they have considered only what the fans want. First, the fans demanded a shot clock, declaring that they would no longer tolerate a game without a shot clock and signing petitions promising to boycott the sport forever if one was not introduced. And so the AFL brought in a shot clock.

Next, the fans demanded that never again should a shot clock be used for cynical gamesmanship in the manner that North Melbourne’s Mason Wood used it, as this was a blight on the indigenous game that if repeated would result in empty stadia within a fortnight. The public had spoken – as long as Mason Wood’s obscene exploitation of the clock was possible, the game could not go forward.

And now we have the simpler, more user-friendly shot clock rule, and we shall all be most happy until such time as it is discovered that the new rule ruins the game even more completely than the previous ones, and on that occasion – perhaps in a month or two if not less – the rule will change again, and we shall be most happy again.

The responsiveness and commitment to keeping priorities straight is simply stunning, and I think a lot of organisations could learn from the AFL’s example.

But given the league has demonstrated just how responsive it can be, this seems like a perfect time to put forward a few more suggestions for them to follow up on. Because as perfect as the game of Australian rules football is, we have to admit that it’s not perfect. There are some other pressing issues that need taking care of before we can indulge in the sort of complacency that would normally accompany news of the resolution of a dire shot clock crisis.

Issues like:
– Reforming the deliberate out-of-bounds rule by hooking every played up to a portable polygraph machine that would measure their physiological response when the umpire asked, “Was that on purpose?”

– Introducing a second clock to sit beside the shot clock, called the “bounce clock”, which counts the number of paces that a player takes between bounces and sounds a loud siren if they exceed the allotted amount, the allotted amount to be determined by the closest umpire and communicated via hand signals to the bounce clock operator on each occasion that a player takes possession of the ball.

– Defining “prior opportunity” in a stricter way, so that every player is crystal clear that if he does not dispose of the ball in a timely fashion, he will be deregistered. “A timely fashion” in this case to be defined as the time taken by the nearest field umpire to do three situps.

– Reforming the video review system so that the video umpire is given the chance to view the goal from every possible camera angle, as well as a montage of similar goals from yesteryear, and if he deems it necessary, the best of biffs, bumps and brawls, before coming to a decision.

– Standardising the bounce of the ball, so that we no longer have to suffer the intolerable uncertainty of not knowing in which direction the ball will travel after coming into contact with the ground. Any ball not bouncing in a league-approved fashion will be fined.

– Changing the hands-in-the-back rule so that any contact with the hands at all is grounds for an instant free kick, but headbutting is allowed.

– Disqualifying Hawthorn.

I look forward to the implementation of these suggestions by Round 10, and thanks to the AFL’s peerlessly responsive nature, a game that all fans can truly enjoy.