If player-initiated advantage is the ugliest Law in the litter, then deliberate rushed behind is perhaps the most mis-understood.

15.7 Free kicks — Deliberate rushed behind 
15.7.1 when awarded
A free kick shall be awarded against a player from the defending team who intentionally kicks, handballs or forces the football over the attacking team’s goal line or behind line or onto one of the attacking team’s goal posts. In assessing whether a free kick should be awarded under this Law, the field umpire shall give the benefit of the doubt to the defender.

15.7.2 taking free kick
A free kick awarded under Law 15.7.1 shall be taken at the point where the football crossed the goal line or behind line or from the relevant goal post.

This Law was introduced in the wake of what AussieRulesBlog is pleased to call the Bowden Manoeuvre, although it could equally have been called the Guerra Manoeuvre. In the Bowden instance, Richmond’s Joel Bowden handballed the ball through for a point rather than kick out to a contest after a behind — repeatedly. The Tigers were battling to forestall an Essendon come-from-behind victory. Bowden figured, correctly under the rules at the time, that the point he conceded was a smaller penalty than the goal that the Bombers may have created on a turnover from his kickout.

In the Guerra instance, Hawthorn’s Brent Guerra, in a similar circumstance to Bowden, went a step further — we use that term advisedly! — to actually step over the goal line and conceded a point rather than take a kick in after a behind to a disadvantageous situation — again repeatedly.

This Law is quite clear: the umpire is required to judge whether the ball crossing the goal line or hitting the posts was the intention of the defender. Not a lot of grey there — until The Giesch got hold of it.

Under the interpretation currently being peddled by the umpires at the behest of The Giesch and his cronies, a defender who is ‘under pressure’ is permitted to intentionally force the ball over the goal line or onto a goal post — in direct contravention of the Law as written. We wonder whether the Rules Committee created the interpretation at the same time as the rule? In either case, the umpire has to assess either intent or pressure, both very subjective judgements.

The reason we’ve picked this rule is the level of misunderstanding of the interpretation that was to be employed. Despite the AFL releasing a short video demonstrating what would be considered deliberate and what wouldn’t, there was widespread confusion, largely fed by assumption rather than knowledge or research.

Since this Law was introduced, for the 2009 season, we think it has worked pretty well. The Bowden/Guerra manoeuvre, the real target of the Law, has been totally eliminated from the game and defenders have slightly fewer options when close to goal. There have been some notably poor decisions, but given the number of times there is potential for a ruling to be made, those clangers have been mercifully few.

January
Who can forget the fallout from the Blues’ players pre-Christmes ‘booze cruise’? Club culture was our constant companion through a very quiet month.

Reports of AFLPA draftee induction camps gave us hope that, eventually, we shouldn’t have to endure the infantile antics of AFL footballers.

Later in the year, 18-year NFL veteran, Brett Favre, demonstrated this is a forelorn hope with his ‘sexting’.

February
As we prepared to get into the semi-serious stuff of the pre-season competition, the AFL gave bloggers a late Christmas present by revealing its so-called staging sanctions. Confusion reigned with almost everybody expecting players staging for a free kick in a marking contest to be free kicked or reported. Hardly anyone took the trouble to watch the video and understand what the AFL actually intended.

Temporary Saints recruit, Andrew Lovett, who already hadn’t managed to hit it off with his new teammates, found himself facing a rape charge and his new club finding him guilty without the benefit of a trial.

As the pre-season comp got underway, there was plenty of controversy with an apparent video referral of a scoring decision resulting in the goal umpire’s call being overturned. Field umpires had got straight back into stride by paying free kicks based on what they thought had happened rather than what they’d seen and, following the lead of Stephen McBurney, keeping their whistles on a hair trigger.

March
As the FFA seduced some sections of the AFL world with deals to upgrade regional stadiums, the Saints descended into amateur hour with the most inept handling of a grievance against a player in AFL history.

The AFL umpiring department announced their somewhat hilarious sponsorship by spectacle retailers, OPSM, and then proceeded to umpire sensibly — to everyone’s surprise!

Finally, the season proper got underway and we had a bit of a rant about how media select BOGs.

April
The AFL’s long-standing desire to make the game more attractive was thrown into chaos by the proliferation of ugly milling packs where everyone was frightened to take possession of the ball.

We lauded Western Bullgog, Bob Murphy, and his old-fashioned notion of respect for opponents and the Magpies–Saints clash provided a gilt-edged example of disrespect. Not only that, but three other posts focussed on this game. In the meantime, Brendan Fevola managed to tick off another couple of deadly sins on his personal bucket list.

We penned another instalment in our campaign to remove The Giesch, this time for inflexible interpretations.

Melbourne Storm managed to outmuscle every other sport in the world for press column-centimetres for a few days.

May
The month began with us berating Jeff Gieschen. That was a surprise — not.

Some genius at the AFL decided the Demons and the umpires would look spectacular in (nearly) matching uniforms for the Breast cancer game. Demons players couldn’t find their teammates on the field and kept handballing to umpires.

Speculation bubbled along concerning the next big NRL convert to AFL (and will Greg Inglis now make it another?), Jeff Kennett inserted his foot firmly in his mouth over the Ben Cousins doco, followed in close order by senior coach Alastair Clarkson shooting his gob off.

The rushed behind rule became interesting with about sixty thousand definitions being flung around, none of them being one of several employed by the AFL umpires. We finished the month by writing off St Kilda, in the wake of Riewoldt’s hamstring and lamenting the demise of respect and sportsmanship on the AFL field.

June
The holding the ball rule, 50-metre penalties, the advantage rule interpretation, and Jeff Gieschen, occupied much of our attention in June, along with Stephen Baker’s mauling of Steve Johnson and chief umpiring zealot, Steve McBurney’s hair-trigger whistle.

July
Co-operative goal umpiring that still couldn’t get the decision right was in our sights as July began. But we managed to focus on non-umpiring topics as well!

Modern players’ penchant for dribbling the ball through for a goal caught our attention and indicated to us that these players are just show ponies.

Confusing and inconsistent Match Review Panel outcomes gave us some grief, while the emergence of Michael Barlow as a star for Fremantle suggested to us that home-grown, ‘mature’-age recruits would be a better bet than international fancies like the Bombers’ Irishman, Michael Quinn.

Mark Williams’ sacking by Port Adelaide brought to an end to his death of a thousand cuts, while debut umpire Corey Bowen’s five first-half 50-metre penalties against the Bombers had us almost apoplectic with rage. We didn’t have long to wait for retribution as Bowen didn’t feature in the list of umpires for matches played the following week!

Meanwhile, Jeff Gieschen fantasised that his charges umpired “to the DVD” each and every week! Yeah, sure Jeff, and we’re a dead ringer for George Clooney.

The AFL allowed a police-check armband for the Hawks and Saints, but no such leniency for the Bombers and their Clash for Cancer.

Einsteinian concepts of curved space were employed to justify Lance Franklin’s ‘natural arc’ when kicking for goal, to allow umpires not to call play on. Truly one of the more breathtaking rationalisations from Gieschen’s mob for the year.

August
Surprise, surprise, Steve McBurney and over-zealous umpiring caught our attention at the start of the month, but not quite as much as the huge cast we found encasing our left wrist and forearm, courtesy of a fall. A nicely snapped radius bone in what the medical fraternity know as a Colles fracture.

Jeff Gieschen, ignoring previous indiscretions by his charges in making scoring decisions, suggested talk and consultation would be more effective in weeding errors out of goal umpiring than an extra goal umpire at each end. We must conclude that goal umpires are extraordinarily well-paid, since the AFL seem incredibly reluctant to employ another eight of them!

Finally, the talk began that James Hird would replace Matthew Knights as Essendon coach. As we now know, Knights was gone by the end of the month and Hird was being very coy. Smoke? Fire? We remain unconvinced by the denials of preplanning.

September
We highlighted the MRP’s failure to act against blatant staging when Jarrad Waite lodged an Oscar-worthy entry against the Swans, while the AFL world debated the merits of free kicks that are “technically there, but . . .”

An exodus of almost biblical proportions at Brisbane in the previous summer and the failure of the big name import to have a meaningful impact on-field left the club looking rather sickly.

And then there was the Grand Final entertainment — a highlight of our year. This year’s baffling progress of the Premiership Cup from a tethered hot air balloon, through the hands of Tom Harley, to Peter McKenna and ‘Cowboy’ Neale was underwhelming in the extreme.

Fortunately, as we now know, the game itself lived up to all the hype and more. The Saints were a bee’s dick away from breaking their drought, needing only a mildly eccentric bounce of the ball for Steven Milne to goal in the dying seconds and secure the game. Instead the ball bounced at 120° and we were back the following week.

In a fitting finish to the on-field year, in the drawn Grand Final, emergency umpire Steve McBurney spent more time on the field than most of the players.

Oh, and, quite unexpectedly, James Hird was appointed coach of the Bombers, in case you missed that news!

October
Of course, the Grand Final replay imposed footy on October even more strongly than usual, with the ’Woods downing the Saints in no uncertain terms — sadly. AussieRulesBlog has no great affection for the Saints, but any day that Collingwood loses is a good day.

In the biggest jaw-dropping moment of the year, Saints coaches nominated perennial ‘rabbit-in-the-headlights’ Zac Dawson as their best player in the grand final replay.

Bomber Thompson left the Cats, taking the media world completely by surprise, and the impact of expansion teams on the Gold Coast and in Sydney meant we’d have a six-ring circus for the first round of the pre-season competition.

November
Once again taking everyone by surprise, Bomber Thompson was announced as senior assistant to James Hird at Essendon.

A trickle of assistant coaches leaving St Kilda became a flood, leaving coach Ross Lyon to book a telephone booth for the footy department’s Xmas party.

December
The FFA’s soap bubble of optimism for hosting the World Cup was unceremoniously burst, leaving Frank Lowy and Ben Buckley wearing egg makeup.

The Demons released their ‘cutting-edge’ new uniform, to a general yawn, Gary Ablett Jnr let it be known that Bomber Thompson’s problem was that he was trying to coach the football team and, just for good measure, the AFL announced another slew of temporary rule changes for the pre-season competition — some OK, some laughable.

And that’s how it was at AussieRulesBlog for 2010. We look forward to having our regular readers back for 2011 when, once again, we’ll prick a few balloons and renew our campaign to Release the Giesch!

Happy New Year and have a safe, enjoyable and productive 2011. Go Bombers!

Sunday’s free kick against Essendon’s Cale Hooker for a deliberately rushed behind, subsequently adjudicated as the correct decision by Giesch and Co, brings into sharp focus the extremely hazy definition of “pressure” in the context of this rule.

Hooker was a little further out from the goal line than Henry Slattery a few weeks earlier, but had lost his footing where Slattery maintained his. Koschitzke was three or four metres from Hooker and could reasonably have been expected to be moving quickly to tackle Hooker (that he wasn’t says more about Kosi than about the rule!). Slattery had Franklin a couple of metres behind him.

In neither case did the Essendon player get tackled across the goal line.

So, The Giesch says the Slattery decision was wrong, and Scott McLaren paid a price for it, and now says the Hooker decision was right.

AussieRulesBlog would be happy for both to be right, and many more besides, but once again ‘interpretations’ have left the game in a very murky place.

The issue for The Giesch now is to come up with an everyman explanation of “pressure” in the context of this rule — an everyman explanation that umpires can apply, correctly and consistently, in a split second; an everyman explanation that tells players precisely what they can and can’t do. Oh, and it would be useful if fans were let in on the secret too!

Every week at the game — and it happened to us again last night — we are surprised to find ourselves waiting breathlessly for an umpire to award a free kick penalty for a rushed behind as an opposition player takes the ball across the goal line in general play. Of course, we can wait breathlessly until the cows come home — it’s not going to happen.

Along with the AFL’s sanctions against staging, the rushed behind rule may be the most widely misunderstood rule in the history of sport!

The rushed behind rule (click the link in the tag cloud for more on this) should be renamed the Joel Bowden Timewasting Rule. That scenario, of stepping back over the goal line at a kick-in after a behind (the Bowden Manoeuvre), is the only scenario where a free kick will be awarded.

Likewise, people are desperately waiting for an umpire to report a player — Riewoldt has been the target of choice — for accentuating contact in a contested ball scenario, especially marking, under the AFL’s staging sanctions.

It was clear from the video distributed by the AFL at the time that the sanctions did not apply to players accentuating illegal contact in contested situations. Perhaps Riewoldt’s enforced lay-off will allow the more zealous of these critics to take a breath and recompose themselves.

These two examples are but the most recent. Even the most common of umpiring decisions are misunderstood by most of the crowd going by the regular (and obviously ill-informed) roars from crowds. Ask a hundred people near you at a game and you’ll get a hundred different versions of “holding the ball”, “holding the man”, “prior opportunity”, and so on — not to mention the large number of superhumans within the crowd who can spot the tiniest infringement a hundred and more metres away on the other side of the ground completely unaided by any sight improvement technology.

We can’t figure out why, but the AFL clearly hasn’t communicated these rules or interpretations effectively to the vast majority of the football-watching population.

There is some ‘education’ via the umpires’ mikes during games on television, but this is hardly a seriously designed communication campaign to improve fans’ understanding of the rules.

If the administrators of the game are really serious about improving general attitudes toward umpires, the best thing they could do would be to institute a planned and comprehensive communication campaign to educate the football world — it might take longer with Carlton supporters as their natural assumption of privileged treatment would need to be overcome first.

The 'Chicken Little's of the footy blogosphere ("It's the end of the bump!"; "Wait 'til a team loses a Grand Final on a deliberate rushed behind decision!") can safely look to Joel Bowden as the progenitor of their current hysteria.

In the 2008 Grand Final, Brent Guerra and others sought strategic advantage from the rushed behind — seeking to free up targets for a kickout. It was a measure of Geelong's defensive pressure that the tactic was employed. At no time did the Hawks' antics in their defensive goal square materially effect the game, save to make a part of it incredibly ugly.

Joel Bowden on the other hand, sought to avoid losing a close game by wasting time on the clock, using rushed behinds. As I have opined previously on AussieRulesBlog, time wasting elsewhere on the field attracts a 50-metre penalty, and it seems perfectly logical that timewasting in the goal square should be treated no differently. The effect of a 50-metre penalty from the goal line, even between the goal and point posts, would be to put the player taking the free kick on the goal line dead centre between the goal posts.

It is to the credit of the AFL that they have softened the effect of the rushed behind timewasting penalty — The Bowden Rule — by ruling that the free kick be taken from the spot where the infringement occurs. The one area that remains unclear is whether the attacking team could also be penalised for deliberately rushing a behind. Admittedly, with immediate kick-ins, it's more difficult to imagine a scenario where there would be purely tactical advantage for the attacking team taking this action, unless the countdown clock is publicly accessible.

The Bowden Rule does not unduly disadvantage defenders. Anyone wanting to champion the rights of defenders would do better to look to incidental contact with the forward's arms in a marking contest! The Bowden Rule has shown, in the pre-season competition, that defenders have an opportunity to demonstrate their creativity in moving the ball from deep in defence. In addition, the acid is put on all opposing forwards to apply genuine defensive pressure rather than rely on zoning.

There are so many positive aspects to the Bowden Rule. Well done AFL!

News is just through that The Bowden Rule is to remain in force for the 2009 season proper. The doomsayers will see huge difficulties, but the benefits to the game as a whole massively outweigh the vague possibility that a team loses a game as a result of a poor rushed behind decision. This is a good decision, because the flood of rushed behinds seen during the 2008 Grand Final would, otherwise, have become a veritable torrent.

It's finally clear, from video explanation released via The Age website, that the deliberate behind rule is all but totally the Bowden Rule.

There are two fairly obvious observations: the notion of "the benefit of the doubt' has been stretched near to breaking point; and the McMahon decision was a complete and utter brain fade on the part of the umpire concerned.

The video makes it clear that the Bowden Manoeuvre is the intended target of the rule. Why did Adrian Anderson not say so directly, or release an appropriate package of video, at the time of the announcement? It cannot have taken ten weeks to iron out what the rule means. The footballing public have been treated like mushrooms!

Questions raised about a lawyer administering football must once again be raised. Neither the legal nor the footballing senses of the Operations chief's role have been fulfilled with distinction recently.

Comments in relation to umpires seeing a cause for a free kick before blowing the whistle are not negated by these announcements.

Jeff, on your way out, grab Adrian and take him with you. Thanks, mate.

AFL Umpiring Director Jeff Gieschen is quoted in The Age on the incorrect deliberate rushed behind decision (The Age).

"[The umpire] just got caught slightly out of position, which meant that he was looking from behind the players and all he saw was the ball go straight through the behind ... from close range with a reasonable amount of force," Gieschen said.

If that's the case, Jeff, we have to ask why the hell the whistle was anywhere near the umpire's mouth. If he can't see what is going on, he cannot legitimately adjudicate on anything. If he didn't see McMahon handballing, then he couldn't judge intent, nor could he see that McMahon's body had been pushed, causing a misdirected handball.

This is not an issue of umpires' positioning. It is ridiculous to expect that the umpire(s) can see every contest from all possible vantage points. Sometimes a free kick will be missed simply because the umpire doesn't have sight of the incident.

Sadly however, under Gieschen's direction, AFL umpires increasingly make decisions which they cannot see — holding the ball decisions most prevalently. Not having seen the event properly cannot be an excuse for an incorrect decision. Sometimes no decision is the correct decision, whatever the roar from the crowd.

Release the Giesch!!!!!

In the space of two weeks, we've traversed from rushed behinds that were virtually universally-acknowledged to warrant a free kick to an accidental rushed behind that is penalised under the new rule and which, I suspect, will be virtually universally-acknowledged as completely the wrong decision.

The ONLY saving grace was the Collingwood player's sporting kick ;-) to hit the opposite behind post and so not register a score.

Since it was an umpire who made the blunder, there's only one practical response: Release the Giesch!!

I’d like someone to explain the benefit to be gained from countdown clocks being displayed (The Age). I don't just mean at the ground for the paying customers, I mean on television and radio (you know what I mean!) and especially to the competing teams.

Who is not bored to the back teeth with players holding the ball up like some Olympian trophy to signify that the team is attempting to "ice the clock"?

If it's a close contest, I definitely don't want to know how much time is left. That knowledge kills the suspense and excitement. I want the players to be desperate at the contest right to the final second, not chipping the ball around a deserted backline to waste the few seconds the bench has notified them are left.

We've just killed off (hopefully) the Bowden Manoeuvre, which was nothing more than a time-wasting trick. I want to keep the coaches, media and crowd in total suspense until the siren sounds, and avoid the ugly time-wasting exercises that blight our game.

Like many other fans, both in the blogosphere and in the stands, I've been non-plussed by the seeming failure of umpires to enforce what we thought was a ban on deliberately-rushed behinds.

In a couple of on-line discussions, I've wondered whether the rule was limited in effect to combatting the Bowden Manoeuvre.

I decided it was time to do some detective work. The latest mention of the trial rule that I can locate on the AFL website is the report of Adrian Anderson's December 15, 2008 announcement of the raft of rule changes and trials.

In that report I found the following statement: “a) A free kick will now be awarded for any deliberate rushed behind.” I note the use of the word “any”.

In my previous post, I opined that the Giesch had changed his spots and was upholding the standard of commonsense in interpretations of rules.

I have now decided that the Giesch is being deliberately obtuse in a crazy bid to confuse us and thwart our anger at his charges. I'm onto you Giesch!! You can't pull the wool over MY eyes!

Memo Andrew: It's about time you muttered something like “Will no-one rid me of this troublesome umpiring Director?”, whereupon Adrian Anderson will ride off to the Giesch’s office and render him asunder (apologies to W Shakespeare). Seriously, mate, this is as big a joke as the whistle-blowers have ever been. You HAVE TO fix this or lose whatever shreds of credibility you have left.

Perhaps leopards DO change their spots? Sitting amongst the crowd at the NAB Cup Bushfire Relief game at Docklands Stadium I was, frankly, astounded that the trial rule changes were not attacked with more gusto by the adjudicators. Normally the Giesch’s blokes go at a new rule like a starving dog at a bone — but not so on Friday night.

Most contentious among the rule changes was the decision to punish “rushed behinds” with a free kick. I have yet to watch the game on the small screen, but, from the stands, there appeared to be at least two instances where a defender clearly “manipulated” the ball across the goal line. The crowd were somewhat nonplussed that a free kick wasn’t awarded. I have heard a suggestion that the rule is intended only to remove the Bowden Manoeuvre. If so, it has been successful, but more detailed information seems to be in short supply.

Less contentious, a rule prohibiting restraint of a player after having disposed of the ball came into play a couple of times (apparently — it’s one of the major failings of our game at present that increasingly contentious rulings on the field are not explained to the paying customers) with 50-metre penalties awarded, but there seemed to be many other occasions warranting such penalties.

Finally, a defender, caught on the boundary line near the goals, handballing vaguely in the direction of the goals, but certainly over the boundary line, was not penalised for deliberate out-of-bounds. In 2008, a similar defensive handball, aimed at the goal line, but instead going out of bounds, would have been penalised with a free kick. Not so in 2009 it seems.

All of this seems to suggest that the Giesch has indeed changed his “spots”. I fear there's been an outbreak of virulent commonsense at AFL Umpiring Central. No doubt the medication will take hold and blot it out soon. Then we can return to normal and have rules, especially new ones, umpired to the fine letter of the law at the beginning of the season and eased off in the run to finals. I just can't take these new ways of doing things, Jeff.

Release the Giesch!!

Over the festive season, I've been watching some games from 2008 as they’re being replayed on FoxSports (one must have one’s fix...).

I’ve noticed that deliberately rushed behinds were considerably more prominent than I had remembered. Not the blight taken to hideous extreme by Joel Bowden and Brent Guerra, but defenders punching the ball across the goal line as a defensive relief valve.

I remind readers that the AFL is determined to introduce a trial rule penalising deliberately rushed behinds as part of the pre-season competition, with a possibility for implementation in the season proper.

The AFL website includes the following: “Examples of what constitutes a deliberate rushed behind will be included on the Laws of the Game DVD to be released by the AFL umpiring department early in 2009.” (see full article here) [Note: the DVD referred to is available to anyone. Simply contact the AFL and request one.]

My initial preference had been to penalise only the Bowden Manoeuvre, but in watching a good number of games from the 2008 season, I am convinced that the action proposed will improve our game. It’s not often I hand out bouquets to the AFL, so mark this one down in your diaries!

This weeks’ announcement of rule changes for 2009 competitions by the AFL is a mixed bag.

The imminent death of the ‘Bowden Manoeuvre’ is to be welcomed almost without qualification. Unfortunately, in putting the strategy to the sword, the AFL has once again demonstrated its penchant for overkill.

Despite a number of comments here and elsewhere decrying the move, I wholeheartedly support the introduction of two additional boundary umpires. Having one man patrolling the line on each side has been a nonsense for decades. Readers will remember, I hope, that the official reason for additional field umpires was initially the speed of the game. The poor old ‘boundaries’ have been struggling to keep up with an increasingly speedy game for many years. Ruckmen will simply have to adapt.

Modifications to the penalties for interchange infringements have moved in the right direction, but the punishment remains absolutely out of proportion to the crime.

Lastly, allowing umpires to recall poor bounces is, finally, a commonsense response to an increasing problem. I think the inherent uncertainty of the bounce is an important aspect of Aussie Rules, but very poor bounces have the potential to deliver too much advantage to a team. Of course the difficulty now is to decide how bad the bounce must be before it is recalled. This is, almost inevitably, the beginning of the slippery slope for the bounce. Inexorably, we will move toward replacing it with a throw-up. It will be a sad day when we no longer see the umpires bounce the ball.

How long before the Bowden Rule is introduced? Brent Guerra got a bruised fist from all the handballs back across the goal line.

These incidents didn't, thankfully, impact meaningfully on the game, but they were unfailingly ugly. The Bowden Manoeuvre is, at the very least, unadventurous and unsporting.