They just can’t leave it alone

The AFL’s announcement of temporary rule changes for the pre-season competition in 2011 further reinforces the notion that, given a toy to play with, the boys just can’t resist fiddling with it until it’s broken!

 

One of the temporary rules, a free kick against the last player to touch the ball before it goes out of bounds, was introduced, according to Adrian Anderson (reported in The Age) “to provide another point of difference”. This is the same thinking that is ruining cricket with wall-to-wall Twenty-20 ‘hit-and-giggle’ matches. Given the average attendances at domestic Sheffield Shield and one-day matches, perhaps cricket administrators could be allowed some leniency, but no such situation confronts AFL football. We need ‘Twenty-20’ football like we need a collective hole in the head. JUST STOP FIDDLING WITH IT!

 

Of the other rules, the one of most concern is video replays for goal umpiring decisions. Firstly, again according to Anderson (in The Age), in 2010 there were fewer than ten (10) errors in ten thousand scoring decisions. That’s an error rate of less than one tenth of one percent! Hardly a compelling rationale.

 

Secondly, the rule as announced is inherently inequitable. In the age of immediate kick-out following a behind, there cannot be any review of an incorrect ‘behind’ decision. Only a ‘goal’ decision will provide sufficient time for a video review to be performed. This is ill-considered at best.

 

AussieRulesBlog wholeheartedly agrees with free-kicking players who drag the ball in under another player in an effort to win a free kick. We think it’s fair enough to give a player awarded a 50-metre penalty outside the 50-metre arc a choice of the penalty and six-point goal or no penalty and the chance at a nine-point goal.

 

But we have plenty of reservations about boundary umpires paying free kicks at stoppages. There are already too many interpretations of contentious rules on the ground with three field umpires. A further four different interpretations is just going to make a mockery of the rule book.