- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Yet again, the AFL respond to a problem that doesn’t exist.
This season, the AFL introduced the 6-6-6 rule because we’d all been clamouring to clear up congestion in forward 50 during centre bounces, right?
Well, no, actually we hadn’t been.
If a team is holding onto a narrow lead and they decide to flood, start 14 players inside defensive 50, or chip the ball around for five minutes, it’s their prerogative. It’s the opposition’s mandate to find a way to win.
But now, the non-issue to end all non-issues is tackling. There’s too much damn tackling. AFL operations boss Steve Hocking wants tackling reduced in football. He doesn’t say to what number, or how that would be governed, but there’s too much damn tackling.
‘‘I have a very strong view on that,” Hocking said. “It has become a feature of our game and all the stuff that we’re analysing is how to get a balance back in that so that it’s not a feature of the game.”
Here’s an idea: let’s make the ball round and put some hoops with nets around them at each end of the ground.
No disrespect towards basketball, but Australian rules football – as shocking as it might be to acknowledge, accept, and digest – is not basketball. Tackling has always been a fundamental feature of our game.
If the AFL want to reduce tackling, there’s a simple way to do it: pay free kicks.
Pay the free kicks that are there. Penalise players for illegal disposal. Penalise players for holding the ball. Dismiss prior opportunity. People complain that’ll stop players going from the ball.
The same complaint was chorused when they introduced a penalty for a player diving on the ball and dragging it in. Did players stop going for the ball? Have they stopped diving on it? No. It’s instinct: players want the ball.
If you pay these free kicks, then you’ll eliminate the need for players to follow up with more tackles. This is the true epidemic in today’s game.
Tackle – dropping the ball. Play on. Tackle – player throws it. Play on. Tackle – doesn’t get rid of it. Ball it up.
How often does this happen in a passage of seconds? I see it – everybody sees it – occur regularly. But who questions it? Nobody.
Why? Because we’ve been programmed to accept nothing will be done about it, just as we’ve resigned ourselves to accept that nobody understands the bulk of ruck infringements and there’s no longer any point questioning it. It’s our new reality.
(Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
Nobody is asking umpires to invent free kicks. Pay what’s there. Whether that’s ten a game or 100 a game, whether that means one side gets 50 free kicks and the other side gets ten.
I’ve never understood why frees so often end up just about equal, when there might be various disparities between the sides that should influence their number.
Pay free kicks. It’ll stop scrimmages. It’ll clear congestion. It’ll open the game. Pay what’s there.
Of course it won’t happen. Too many complain that there are too many free kicks already. Listen to James Brayshaw, who periodically complains in condescending tones there are too many free kicks. I just don’t understand this logic.
The rules aren’t suggestions, which umpires are free to enforce or dismiss, and thus cap in their application. About the only person I’ve heard who says more free kicks should be paid is Leigh Matthews, but what would Matthews know?
He only played 332 games for Hawthorn, 14 for Victoria, played in four premierships, is recognised as one of the game’s greatest players, and is a four-time premiership coach. Let’s listen to the guy who opened the batting for South Australia.
The agenda is to always keep the game moving. Paying free kicks injects pauses into the game. The AFL don’t want pauses. I don’t understand why they don’t want pauses. Are they paranoid somebody might switch a channel during a pause?
Likelier, it’s because they consider pauses unsightly. The game must keep moving at all costs. Don’t believe me?
Look at all their recent changes designed to eliminate pauses:
Name me one rule they’ve introduced or enforced that allows a player to take a breather, or to be defensive.
Then find me a dodo. You’ll have as much luck.
This is the mandate today: remove all the defensive aspects of the game and just keep attacking, keep moving, keep the game in motion.
That’s what’s pretty, right?
That’s what’s attractive, yeah?
Tackling? Bah. Where did that ever get anybody?
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.