AFL football chief Steve Hocking is armed with enough evidence to keep the league coaches in their boxes

AFL football boss Steve Hocking is not flinching as the coaches take issue with his package of new rules — and can backhand the coaches by pointing to their hypocrisy, writes Michelangelo Rucci.

AFL football boss Steve Hocking will be against the 18 league coaches at breakfast on Thursday morning to defend his package of rule changes. He is so confident of his position the coaches will struggle to chew up the man seeking to deliver an “enhanced” AFL game in 2019. Picture: Stefan Postles (Getty Images)

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AFL football boss Steve Hocking is going to breakfast with the 18 league coaches on Thursday morning. In an era when everything seems to be filmed in the AFL, this encounter would be worth watching.

It is 18 v one. It would seem a confronting session. Even Hocking admits he expects to find the coaches “toey” after he has left them a “bit nude” by stripping away some of their power on match day with nine new rules.

But Hocking is quite at ease for a meeting that would become intimidating for many others. He has an answer for each coach’s protest — all from the coaches’ own foibles.

Brisbane coach Chris Fagan will protest he needs the runner rule revoked — the one that allows Fagan to send a messenger to his players only after goals are scored.

Hocking will note that if runners are that important to constantly deliver direction from the bench, why did one coach have a runner on the field for 16 minutes in a third quarter last year? And he has many examples of runners becoming the 19th man or coach on the field.

Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge has declared the five-metre protection zone for 50-metre penalties — that led to a rash of 100-metre penalties at the weekend — will go.

No it won’t. Hocking will remind Beveridge that the advantage from a 50-metre penalty should not be eroded by opponents stalling on the mark so that more players can flood and congest behind the mark.

“Why should the player who has won the right to that (50 metres) of space be penalised?” Hocking will ask Beveridge.

Hocking is 18 months into his role as the AFL football chief. In this time he has streamlined the tribunal, he has completed the most-detailed study in the game’s rules and — most critically — not lost focus on his job.

His former coach at Geelong, Malcolm Blight, notes Hocking is not one to be distracted by sideshows or the “topic of the week” that unfolds in the AFL, as was the case this week with the 50-metre penalties.

Despite the outrage that followed the rash of 100-metre penalties, particularly from the Port Adelaide-North Melbourne trial at Alberton Oval on Saturday, there was never — as Beveridge had declared — to be a backflip from Hocking.

Hocking, his staff that includes the in-tune research of former Crows assistant coach James Podsiadly and two think tanks spent 12 months on the rules project. He was not going to throw out his finding after two weeks of trial games.

“Tactics (to congest the field and slow down the game) crept in for years — and we did not address them,” Hocking said. “We have now (with a package of nine rule changes) … and we are going to remain strong on them.”

The coaches might find the coffee at AFL House very bitter this morning. They are to have breakfast with a man who is not going to blink to their protests.

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