A different sort of ugly

It’s early days yet, but observers at AussieRulesBlog Central are noticing an increasing occurrence of huge packs of players fumbling the ball around like a cake of soap. No player, it seems, wants to determinedly take possession for fear of being free kicked for holding the ball. Instead the ball canons from player to player like some sort of pinball.

Is this spectacle any more attractive than the ‘stacks on the mill’ collapse of players falling on a ball carrier that was seen as so unattractive a few years ago? We don’t think so.

In the current tactical fashion, ultra-quick movement of the ball down the field is the best method to defeat rolling defensive zones. The resulting fast-moving game is exciting and attractive — until there’s no room for a fast break.

We don’t proffer a solution at this point. We merely observe that this is an unattractive feature of elite AFL in the current environment.