AFL trying to reconnect footy with schoolyard days through experimental rules for AFLX

The AFL say its trying to inject a sense of schoolyard fun into its experimental rules for AFLX as it reveals radical changes - including one set to get footy fans talking.

AFL football boss Steve Hocking says the league is trying to inject a sense of schoolyard fun into its experimental rules for this month’s AFLX tournament.

The most radical of those rules for the All Star tournament is a new nominated “gamechanger”, who will be awarded double points for any goal or behind in the last five minutes of the game.

Players will score 10 points for a goal outside the 40 metre arc or “launch zone”, or after taking a mark in a designated 15m arc close to goal that has travelled from outside 40m.

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Teams will play games of two 10-minute halves and be able to run for 20m without bouncing the ball.

The gamechanger will be nominated by the team’s captain and vice-captain, with play stopping with five minutes on the clock to ensure the gamechangers are able to get into position.

Nat Fyfe, Jack Riewoldt, Patrick Dangerfield and Eddie Betts will each captain an AFLX team.

A player like Nathan Fyfe or Patrick Dangerfield isolated deep could kick goals worth 12 points or goals worth 20 points from outside 40m in the last five minutes of a game.

Hocking is aware the AFLX concept has many critics among football’s traditionalists.

But he said players were desperate to play — a pool of 90 has been selected for Wednesday’s draft of 48 players — with clubs on board because the likelihood of injury was low.

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He told the Herald Sun the code aimed at a younger audience was never designed to replicate the 18-man-a-side game.

“Most of this is about fun. The gamechangers are about plugging in players for the last five minutes. In the game clubs already talk about power plays and red time. All of those sayings are in AFL,’’ he said.

“This is about saying to a team, ‘What can you do?’. Double points is pretty exciting and the captain and vice-captain have to think about the type of player they select. People are caught up about why we are trying to rip off the main game.

Patrick Dangerfield will captain AFLX side, the Bolts. Picture: Alan Barber

“I am not too old to think back to the schoolyard. Modified games have been part of AFL footy for a long time. Playing 10 versus 10 or eight versus eight.“

AFLX rules include:

— TWO 10-minute halves with teams of eight and unlimited interchange from squads of 14.

— PLAYERS must bounce the ball only every 20 metres.

— PLAYERS are allowed only 10 seconds to kick for goal after taking a mark or being awarded a free kick.

— NO marks awarded for backwards free kicks, except in the forward 15m zone.

— 25-METRE penalties instead of 50m penalties.

Hocking says the teams, captained by Jack Riewoldt, Nathan Fyfe, Patrick Dangerfield and Eddie Betts, will gather the night before the February 22 concept and effectively coach themselves.

“In the schoolyard you never had coaches, players pretty much decided who was going to be part of a team. People think this concept landed out of nowhere but it is part of our history,”: Hocking said.

“This type of game allows us to plug it in and play it in any part of the world.”