AFL cracks down on 'stand rule' 50m penalty milkers as rule tweaks announced for 2023 season

All good points.

Another related point with regard to the Tassie Mariners in the late 2000's. Matthew Armstrong and recruiters were focused on tall youngsters regardless of football ability. There must come a season again where a football team is able to field a true CHF and FF who can grab a season by the scruff of the neck? Hawkins and Cameron came close in 2022 and was sufficient to win a GF. Maybe Curnow and McKay can move to that level and beyond?

Macca, players are milking for penalties re this rule in 2022. That isn't what I pay my money to see. Players will go into the game in 2023 knowing that a fake hand pass will cost them their protected space. It is too vague to say "just allow the umpires to enforce it with some common sense". Being a diehard supporter yourself, you understand that depending on what colour scarf you are wearing, common sense can be very subjective.

While I'd like to see the rule scrapped entirely I do think if it must remain in place your suggestion is a good one and worthy of consideration. Imagine a player like St Kilda's Milne operating in the arc under the current rules! Farcical.

Agreed, if they are going to keep the stand rule, dont make it harder to officiate for the umpires by adding qualifying factors to the rule. I do however think that the stand rule should not apply for shots on goal, make it simple if the man standing the mark is on or inside the 50m arc the stand rule does not apply.

Yep, Sniper Selwood won’t be missed …

I would never call Tony Lockett fat. He'de boot me through the sticks from around 50m out. Who were you referring to? In Netball some teams have had huge goalshooters who know how to impose themselves on the game. I wouldn't be getting in their way. But AFL has become a midfielders paradise with the big boys diminishing in relevance unless they can mark big at both ends of the ground. Mind you after having met a few, they're all seem bigger meaning taller than they look on TV.

RL split from RU over compensation whilst injured. The accountants, lawyers and doctors practice’s paid for the downtime. Coal miners had no such luck. That’s why RL became so much more popular in Australia. AF was not hindered so much by that back then as there was the fact AF is a much more egalitarian game on the field as well. But it’s losing some of that egalitarian schtick because most players are now coming from the privates schools. But that could also be a function of more n more kids attending such schools.

And you can't fix the typos one of which was actually a swear word. I've got the words and music, l just lack the algor-rhythm.

The problem with modern football is the coaches almost demand multi-position type players.Even the key pillars either play ruck/forward or back, mids are all over the place a sameness is fast approaching & DD does make a good point that teams like the Pies as an example run from HB to HF all day long & hope to exhaust the opposition & scrape over the line. The extra on the interchange will end up 5 & Sub to keep the AFL mantra ‘happy as pig in sh.t’ :happy:

I'm surprised they continue not to adopt last touch out of bounds from a kick or handball penalty as this would seem to clean this area up a fair bit. I also reckon the old kick-in rule was better than the new one.

I answered this by using a player whose name is Roger W O O D C O C K but the algorithm sent it to the Falklands for verification

In keeping with ye Olde style players there was a player called Roger Woodcock who played for Norwood in the 70s. He kicked in 602 goals from 267 games. from the Right Half Forward being a left footer. He had sublime accuracy with what simply was the most beautiful action. . If David Gower was an Australian Footballer it would have been as R Woodcock. Russell Ebert was quoted as say if it was a mark to Roger it was a goal to follow. Set shit or on the run he was simply outstanding. I don't remember him tackling or handballing such was his kicking. He was also a good mark.

Trying to think of the last player to grace the forward line that blended in walking down the aisle in your local supermarket so with that in mind l can’t go pass Stewart Dew!

I remember those guys.

Yes and no. At times I thought they simply refused to pay free kicks, particularly to the likes of Ginnivan. Reputation shouldn't exceed the need to pay warranted free kicks. Difficult game to umpire, even before bias is taken into account, hey?

Got a valid point DD they select athletes before pure footballer in draft.The podgy full forward is now non existent. You know the one that can actually convert goals rather than continuous behinds like todays AFL’s forwards.l say slow the game down & bring back the Fat Man :thumbup:

Changing the rules is okay, providing you have a clear objective that's in keeping with the game. I don't believe this has been achieved. My observation of the game over the past 15 years, backed by some reasonably conclusive evidence scoreboard-wise, is that the game has become more of an athletic contest than a footballing one. The previous Independent Rules Committee (which has now been disbanded and governed by the AFL) always protected the game's core pillars. One of those pillars was to protect and reward the player going for the ball. This has changed significantly over the years, particularly with the holding-the-ball rule. This has often led to teams being cautious at the coalface or deploying defensive systems 30-40 metres from the contest to stifle clean uncontested possession further afield. This has led to more open play and less stoppage (which is what many wanted from a few years ago) but surprisingly fewer goals. This was one of the goals outlined by the AFL and was their main reasoning for many of the rules that have been implemented over the past few years. As such, they have failed in their endeavour. I'm going to use Collingwood as an example to make my case because they are a team that most have wrong, yet they make my point nicely. Most footy pundits in the media and on this forum described the Pies as a free-flowing, attack-at-all-costs footy team. I never understood this because you would expect such a mantra to reflect on the scoreboard. Well...they had the 9th best attack in the league, with even Gold Coast scoring more than them in the regular season. What they did do well was run the ball from the bookends and look fantastic in the process. Their running power was exceptional and would make any 400-metre athlete envious. We now see constant open-play pinging of the ball as teams desperately want to wear the other team out and move the ball at all costs. Gill openly admitted this is the type of play he wanted, instead of stoppage footy, which we now have. He also said it would lead to more goals, which it hasn't. It's resulted in the ball pinging between the halfback lines due to very little footy craft being employed. Why? Because we now have 400-metre athletes, not footy players. I remember reading about a similar situation occurring many years ago in Rugby Union. Some argued the game was too structured with too many stoppages — the game would be better if it opened up and was more free-flowing, hence the advent of Rugby League we know today. I see the same thing occurring in our game today.

It was definitely better in the second half of the season compared with the first though

No better would be separate rules for the pros and everyone else. Don't have the rule in local footy at all