Essendon great Tim Watson says he was left feeling flat after watching the debut of AFLX
WAS AFLX a winner or a bust? Tim Watson says he was left feeling flat after watching the debut on Thursday night. Do you agree? Plus, get the inside word on if we have seen the last of the silver footballs.
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ESSENDON great Tim Watson says he was left feeling flat after watching the debut of AFLX on Thursday night.
After months of build-up, the first AFLX matches officially got underway, with Adelaide eventually topping Geelong in the Grand Final.
Watson said the concept was less exciting than international rules matches between Australian and Ireland.
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“I didn’t find the excitement levels I thought I would find,” he said on SEN.
“When I watch the International Rules Series with Ireland v Australia, and we know there is something hinging on that because it’s country against country. I thought that game was more exciting than what we watched last night.
“The game itself, it is a completely different game. The great features in our game don’t really appear in AFLX.
“No one was kicking the ball long to a contest, because players are programmed to kick the ball to each other, they hit the targets, there is free running and no real tackling pressure.”
A crowd of just over 10,000 attended the carnival of matches at Adelaide’s Hindmarsh Stadium.
The lack of tackling pressure could lead to some early rule changes.
AFLX project manager Dave Stevenson said adding another one or two players to the field is an option.
“Across the whole night there were four or five ball ups,” he said.
“That is one of the things we will look at. Would we have more players on, eight or nine, to create a few more contests? There wasn’t a lot of high marking. They are the things that will come next week. Once we have had a look at all three we will take a deep breath and see what changes we need to make.”
Stevenson said it was unlikely the league would look to change the rules before matches scheduled for Friday and Saturday.
“We could but I think at this stage the clubs have prepared under a set of rules,” he said.
“We are usually a little nervous about changing (rules) so close to a game. At this stage we will stay where we are but there will be some chances later this year to do some trials and see how that could look.”
Tonight’s Melbourne based AFLX competition will see Carlton, Melbourne, Hawthorn, Essendon, North Melbourne and St Kilda play two matches each before a Grand Final to finish the event.
Stevenson also addressed a number of other talking points from last night’s games, including changing the balls, the lack of star power and what the future holds for AFLX.
Why did you change the ball from silver to yellow?
“As it got a little darker, it was a little hard to see (the silver ball) so we had already planned and had all the yellow balls there ready. We thought we’d make that change and see how it goes.”
Was the silver ball slightly smaller than the yellow ball?
“No it wasn’t. It was the same size.”
Will we see the silver ball back tonight?
“We will evaluate today and see how we go tonight.”
Did you put pressure on clubs to select star players?
“We didn’t. We certainly could have gone down that route but one of the most important groups that we want to make sure this works for is the players and the clubs. We didn’t put any pressure on them at all. We had really strong support across the clubs. A couple of coaches in particular came out in strong support. Like any pre-season game, you are going to have some of those established stars and some of the emerging talent that you saw on show last night. There was no specific direction to the clubs.
What is the long term plan for AFLX?
There is definitely a long term plan with AFLX but we are open to what that looks like. We wanted to trial it in a pre-season, while moving the JLT Series from three games to two so it fit quite nicely into the schedule. Again, part of this is what does the role of AFLX look like? What is the time of year? Should that be regular season? Should it be pre-season? Should it be elite players or those past retired legends? There are so many possibilities that it opens up.”
Originally published as Essendon great Tim Watson says he was left feeling flat after watching the debut of AFLX
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