Ruck changes welcome

AFL Operations Manager Adrian Anderson is reported in The Age to have spoken about proposals for experimental rules for the 2012 pre-season competition.

 

Among the possibilities are 12 points for a torpedo goal from outside the fifty-metre arc, which we regard as populist nonsense, despite the obvious difficulties in defining whether a torpedo that’s not quite right is a torpedo or not.

 

Other possibilities are:

■ Boundary and goal umpires allowed to pay obvious free kicks for holding and high contact. [Let’s define obvious, shall we?]

■ Ruckmen not permitted to make contact for boundary throw-ins and around-the-ground bounces.

■ Free kicks not paid for last touch over the boundary but for last kick, handball or when a player walked the ball over the line. [Still a turkey of an idea.]

 

AussieRulesBlog is glad to see a mention of ruck contests in the range of issues to be addressed. The description provided can only be regarded as a quick shorthand because a literal implementation of “no contact” for boundary and around-the-ground ruck contests is simply not practical.

 

For what it’s worth, AussieRulesBlog would like to see anything that looks like a hold or a shepherd with the arms in a ruck contest penalised. We’re really over the ruck wrestling. Fair enough if players want to engage in a test of strength, but holding or shepherding is just plain ugly. We recognise that limiting contact to the body advantages athletic, high-leaping players such as Nic Naitanui and Paddy Ryder quite strongly, however they are similarly disadvantaged in the current wrestling matches that pass for ruck contests.

 

Let’s have an end to umpires shouting, “Both holding!”

 

In the same story, there are more hints that some sort of video decision assist will be implemented, sooner rather than later. We’ve already indicated our disquiet. The story notes that only seven scoring decision errors were recorded by the AFL in 2011. Seven! How many goals, behinds, out-of-bounds and goal-line marks and scrambles were adjudicated through the season, and there were seven errors. We’re pretty sure most fans would prefer to see fewer errors of interpretation of rules in the field of play, or, at the very least, consistent interpretations across the season, rather than this manic determination to find a solution to a non-problem.