AFL football boss Steve Hocking has taken the rule book back to the grand era of the Australian game

THE AFL will have nine rule changes next season. In doing so, the league’s football boss Steve Hocking has taken the rule book back to the grand era of the Australian game to allow the players do what they do best — play.

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AUSTRALIAN football is going back 40 years — and this is not a bad thing.

The nine new rules endorsed by the AFL Commission for the AFL game — and beyond — for next season are a massive clean-up of a mess created with good intentions. Too often, AFL House has reacted rather than dealt with how coaches took charge of the look of the game.

Not this time. Now the game is about the players — not the runners nor the coaches who have put defence before attack to protect their jobs.

Australian football is going back 40 years — to when players like Malcolm Blight, who was part of the AFL’s rules think tank, played with instinct.

It has taken 10 months of research. And there seems to have been one key theme from new AFL football boss Steve Hocking, his handpicked staff that includes former Crows player and assistant coach James Podsiadly, the competitions committee and think tank that involved Malcolm Blight: Letting the players play.

“It’s about the players — and letting them play with more instinct,” Hocking said. “It’s not about the people in pink (the runners) … it’s about the players.”

Quite a few of the reactionary rules written in the past four decades have been wiped out. Gone is the “hands in the back” rule for marking contests written 12 years ago when the Laws of the Game committee felt it needed to reward players who created front position when chasing a mark.

AFL football operations bos Steven Hocking this week. He says the new rules will let players play with more instinct. Picture: Michael Willson/AFL Media/Getty Images

Gone is the “Matthew Primus rule” that made it too risky for a ruckman to nudge his rival out of the way and take clean possession of a boundary throw-in or field bounce.

Hocking’s grand research analyst David Rath says: “We have simplified the rules. We had developed layers and layers on the old rules — and created more and more interpretations.”

There is not too much that is radical about Hocking’s nine rule changes. Not even the traditional nine-metre goalsquare has changed. But kick-in specialists will now have more space — an extra 10 metres — to work the ball after a behind has been scored.

Hey guys @rorylaird just text me wants to know if it counts as a stat? https://t.co/y09fmTXovm

— Brodie smith (@Brodiesmith33) October 11, 2018

This is the general theme that the game needs more space for the players to work to their instinctive — and creative — ways. Hence, the 6-6-6 starting positions at centre bounces that will reward dominating ruckmen, accurate-kicking midfielders and hard-leading, strong-marking forwards.

There is big pain — up to 100 metres — if players keep holding up opponents after conceding free kicks and 50-metre penalties.

There is more chance the ball will escape the inside-50 arc on a kick-in from a behind.

The field is cleared of runners and waterboys.

“We want the players to take the game on,” Hocking said. He is giving them space to do just that.

Hocking wants Australian football to be the “thinking man’s game” — not for robots waiting for direction from a coach delivered by those runners in pink.

Magpies runner Alex Woodward speaks with umpire Shaun Ryan after he blocked Jaidyn Stephenson of the Magpies in the grand final. Picture: AAP Image/Julian Smith

Hocking has taken the game back — and also allowed it to progress by rewriting the rule on how a player can line up for a goal after the siren.

No longer will there be a debate about Lance Franklin’s arc or those new-age forwards who want to line-up at goal at right angles.

It is far from a radical rewrite of Australian football’s rule book. But whether it takes the game back to its high-scoring, less-congested era is now up for the real test.

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