Sydney great Jude Bolton says it’s OK for the AFL to leave the game alone

The AFL is open to reducing interchange rotations as a way to cut tackle numbers but a premiership star says the game doesn’t need more rule changes.

Sydney premiership star Jude Bolton has questioned the AFL’s need to continually tinker with the rules.

His comments come as football boss Steve Hocking said today the league would look at the interchange as a way of reducing on-field congestion.

Bolton implored the AFL to leave the game alone, and allow recent rule changes to evolve over time.

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“The incessant need to tweak and change staggers me. Good governance is sometimes not altering anything,” Bolton posted on social media today.

“The AFL now seem to be in a process of trying to unravel previous rule changes by bringing in additional ones — that potentially cause more issues.”

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Hocking told SEN this morning the AFL wanted to find the balance between having a contested game and teams having the freedom to score.

He said they would look at interchange rotations as one way of cutting the number of tackles in a game.

There were 161 tackles in the Geelong-St Kilda game last Saturday night, and 148 in the Port Adelaide-Brisbane match the following day. game last weekend.

“We want it to be a contested game but 160-plus tackles in a game, I’m not sure that’s what the fans want,” he said.

“We want some space.”

St Kilda’s Rowan Marshall is tackled by Geelong opponent Esava Ratugolea, one of 161 from last Saturday night’s match. Picture: Getty Images

Hocking said the 6-6-6 starting positions at centre bounces had worked to an extent in freeing up players “for about 60 to 80 seconds post a centre bounce” but the aim was to open up the game for longer.

But he also warned decreasing the number of interchange rotations may not be the answer.

“One of the issues with it … if you do that, say you take it back to potentially 50 or 60, how would the coaches then deploy their players out on the field?” he said.

“Would they go into a holding pattern within the game and potentially park them behind the ball? We’ve got to be mindful of that.

“I’m not sure that’s the panacea that everyone talks about.

“If you have a look at what we’ve done with some of the rules this year, it has definitely opened the game up, and then there’s other moments where it does really shrink again.

“We are doing some work on the interchange piece, but it’s not something that’s a leading piece for us.”