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:
- Umpires throw the ball up immediately
- A player doesn’t have to wait until a goal umpire stops waving his flags to kick out
- A player doesn’t have to kick the ball to himself when kicking out so, instead, they just sprint and boot the crap out of the ball to propel it forward
- A penalty is applied to a player rushing the ball for a behind
- Deliberates are now strictly enforced, discouraging players from hitting the boundary line
- Shot clocks are imposed on players
- Play on is called quickly following a mark or free kick
- When a 50-metre penalty is paid, the player on the mark can’t run alongside the player with the ball, which means the player with the ball can just sprint and then play on
- A 6-6-6 rule, so that the game remains free and open and at less risk of a stoppage
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?
Leonard
Guest
Message to the AFL's current CEO: restore (or, if you've always considered this point irrelevant) learn to focus on the core duties of your job. Or, resign from it, go poloing, and hand your core duties over to someone who values them above what you seem to value. Or find a job where preaching to us plebs, peasants and proles is seen as a Good Thing.
Gavan Iacono
Roar Rookie
I fear Benny lacks the macchiavellian skills to succeed in AFL house, but let him have a crack. You, RT, are next in line!
RT
Roar Rookie
I was so relieved when we didn’t lose Gale to HQ when AD left, but for the greater good… To think some have suggested that Hocking could be Gilligan’s replacement. He would be even worse and is already influencing Gill (who doesn’t lead) too much. Gill has to go by season’s end and Gale needs to take over (and get rid of Hocking). If not, I am available. I KNOW I would do a better job than the current lot.
Gavan Iacono
Roar Rookie
Some old atheist philosophers were once upon a time accused of letting god back in the house through the back door when everyone was in the front room watching the telly. Im pointing at you Kant! Current day AFL philosophers are following suit. AFLX was derided, a game for hemophiliacs, but now they are trying to change rules to reach the same end as if noone is looking. For the market share of soccer mums and their cotton balled offspring, identified as the future financiers of the game, the trick is to sterilize the game into a namby-pamby event by a series of incremental changes. AFLX here we come! Can Benny Gale save footy? Not sure, but I’m willing to lose him from my club to help save the game if he can.
Facepalm
Guest
You may have to go looking for the point, Goals. You have clearly missed it.
Goalsonly
Roar Rookie
So I think I get it now, previous comments not withstanding. So if you take possession no matter how where why or when you are fair game and responsible for your actions so don't take possession if you think you are just going to be tackled. That should be popular. Who wouldn't want that? and it makes it more simple and so easier for the umpire and everyone. So no milking a ball up by abusing the rule and more flow on footy. I get it. As for paying every little thing they see which is the drift of some of this blog and some experts I repeat it won't do what you think it will.
WCE
Roar Rookie
There are way too many free kicks paid already for incidents that should be play on. One umpire Will pay a ridiculous fairy tap free kick at one and then no free kick the other end by another umpire when a player is hit over the shoulder. Get the Free kick consistency sorted first so everybody has a clearer understanding of what a free kick is paid for. You don't need to reinvent the wheel. Consistency between all umpires would be a bloody good start. Also to much tackling WTF ? What planet is hocking on ? Clean out AFL HQ there are too many space cadets
Pope Paul VII
Roar Rookie
I reckon bring back the 15 metre penalty for scragging following a mark. This is rampant but the umps seem to not want to overly punish the team without the ball. Fair enough too but the old 15m will get things moving pronto. Save the 50s for violent late hits or really blatant infringements designed to slow the team.
Pope Paul VII
Roar Rookie
It's also half the fun.
Pope Paul VII
Roar Rookie
Oh oh playing for frees! The discerning viewing footy public will boo them incessantly and they will stop.
RT
Roar Rookie
I don't think anyone's advocating zero-tolerance free kicks I think they're saying that at the moment there's too much letting it go. In terms of unintended consequences the unintended consequence of introducing prior opportunity some time ago was that players now choose to handball to a teammate half a metre away when they want a ball up. The players knows they will be tackled straight away so they just hold on to it. If you didn't have prior, the original handball would be to a different player or the receiving player would tap it on if he knew he was about to be caught. So I think Cometti has thought it through.
Knoxy
Guest
This is what happens when the tv networks are allowed to have so much leverage over the league. The fact that the tv networks pay so much for the broadcast rights means that they can pressure the AFL to make changes that suit their interests. A good example is the complaints from the media about there not being enough goals scored during games. I'm convinced that this push is coming from Channel 7 so that they can fit in more advertisements. Channel 7 think that they own the sport and subsequently treat it like it's one of their trashy reality tv shows. Every moment of every game has to be packed full of drama, excitement and controversy. We can't have teams playing boring defensive football, nor can we rely on other teams to come up with tactics to counter it and win. That's not what sport is about now is it? It gets pretty hard to take this competition seriously sometimes. If it wasn't for my love for Collingwood I'm not sure I would bother.
RT
Roar Rookie
Peter has answered it very well (11.03 below). I think the author is saying if you want to reduce congestion that’s fine if you just apply the rules that we already have and get rid of prior opp. (which didn’t exist 20ish years ago) but probably has no faith in Hocking to not do something stupid instead. That’s certainly how I feel.
Peter the Scribe
Roar Guru
That's the main point of Hocking's statement that none of us or the author can understand. How can they reduce tackling as a focus? One in and no more? That is, if a player has the ball only one opponent can tackle him and no other player can join is? WHat if two players go for him at once? I think Hocking (the skipper) and Gilligan don't ever really work through how players and coaches will exploit their rule changes. Therein lies the problem. Firstly, they make it up as they go. Secondly, they appear to have no end point in sight in tinkering with the rules. Thirdly, they never intelligently work through how players and coaches will exploit new rule changes. I am for rule changes that reduce congestion. I just don't believe they have the intelligence to do it. Steve "Skipper" Hocking and Gilligan "Oh Gilligan, You've done it again", may well have become the two greatest dangers to our competition in the game's history. Is it too theatrical to suggest they might just kill off Australian footy?
Goalsonly
Roar Rookie
UMM.... what I am saying is this..... If you call everything you see all the time no matter how minor the incident then smarter players will take advantage of that. They will milk free kicks...they do now. They fall forward and make it look like in the back. They duck and get around the neck. They fumble the ball over the line deliberately. They make it look like the other player is holding them by tucking their arms around in a funny way. They pretend to be trying to get rid of the ball by punching at it when they have no intention of doing so' All this is a show for the umpire and it can be clever and rewarding. You see in professional sport we have to have umpires but in recreational sport it's not necessary. So the umpire is there to be tricked. It happens a lot and it's only going to get a lot lot worse if the umpires pay every little tiggy touchwood thing they see. So Leigh Mathews probably never even thought like that but he has to consider it now if his comments are to be well informed. As for Alistair Clarkson and Dennis Cometti well maybe they haven't considered this unintended consequence either. The umpire has to call it how he FEELS it. He has to have a feel for the game and how best to serve it. Then we just give him his head and let him interpretate the rules as he sees applicable and what he says at that moment is the rule(ing). Bad ones will stand out but there aren't many of those around. Pretty good really.
Peter the Scribe
Roar Guru
I get you now Richie. Sorry, not enough coffee. Yes, you are right, because they have so much space for interpretation it gets worse on GF day. Yes I agree. In fact, I don't recall umpires being instructed to "let it go" back then. It really irks me not because letting it go doesn't make it better, because having a different "interpretation" for the day seems farcical to me and manipulative. Let's say you get an anti-social side in like Port (in the highly unlikely event Port would ever make a GF atm) in a GF who "get the benefit of the doubt" on hard tackling and it advantages their style over say a cleaner, more skilful side purely becasue the umps are told to put away their whistles?
Kris Hateley
Roar Rookie
How are the players going to play for a free when they are being tackled? Are they going to drop it intentionally, because that would be a free kick against them? Mathews, Cometti and Clarkson are right. They are obviously right. It just beggars belief that the current AFL administration consistently gets this important issue so horribly wrong.
Billy Mumphrey
Roar Rookie
Not sure what Hocking has suggested but that is certainly the basis of this rant. My point was the author obviously agreed that there is too much tackling and congestion based on suggesting the way to fix it is paying free kicks.
RT
Roar Rookie
Has Hocking actually said that the solution is to pay more free kicks? I think is more likely he'll come up with something ridiculous, like 666 for the entire match.
RT
Roar Rookie
I completely agree with you. What I'm saying is that they have too much leeway on interpretation so that depending how they feel on the day they decide whether or not to pay something one week compared with the previous week. This only makes disparity between grand finals and other matches more likely. Do you agree with me that say 20 years ago the difference between a grand final and home and away didn't seem to be such an issue?