Which players and clubs will have the edge from footy’s new rules?
AFL clubs will be busy strategising over the summer to get an important tactical advantage from the new rules as Jon Ralph looks at which players will have the edge in 2019.
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Zach Tuohy stands in the MCG goal square with Sherrin in hand, scanning the horizon for targets further afield.
Then he darts away, rushing out of the goal square without touching the ball to his boot under the AFL’s new 2019 rule changes.
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The Collingwood players aware of his thumping kick push their zone back another 15 metres, desperate to guard the space in the centre corridor and prevent an end-to-end goal.
Instead, as part of a set play, Tuohy handballs over man on the mark Jamie Elliott to Patrick Dangerfield, who has found a pocket of space 40m out from Collingwood’s goal.
He turns, sprints upfield, unleashes a 60m drop punt over the zone to Tom Hawkins, who is holding off Darcy Moore with his hands before marking 40m out.
Welcome to AFL administrator Steve Hocking’s utopia — the kind of innovation and set play strategy he hopes will be seen in a game like Round 1’s Collingwood-Geelong blockbuster next year.
After five years of the lowest scoring the game has seen since 1968, the AFL preferred a series of smaller changes rather than a radical shift like an 18m goalsquare or starting positions at stoppages.
But which players will it help, and which clubs will be smart enough to strategise over the summer to get small but important tactical advantages from the new rules?
KICK-IN STRATEGY
Hocking is excited at the prospect of players like GWS tyro Lachie Whitfield being given boundless possibilities at kick-ins.
Do they play on and take two bounces, do they take on the man on the mark, do they get a teammate to block the man on the mark and thump torpedoes to the centre square?
But what Champion Data’s kick-in rankings show is the old, wizened greybeards are the masters at one of the most difficult kicks in football.
The kick-in ratings take into account the execution and difficulty of kick, meaning the short chip to the teammate 15m away in the pocket doesn’t help your rating.
Surprisingly, North Melbourne’s 196cm full back Robbie Tarrant was this year’s best kick-in exponent (+14.1 per cent), with fellow Roos defender Scott Thompson (+7.3 per cent) the fourth-best in the league.
It is no surprise the booming Eagle Shannon Hurn (+8.2 per cent) was ranked second, followed by Jarrad McVeigh (+8.1 per cent), with retired Demons Bernie Vince fifth (+6.7 per cent).
None of those players use their pace to steal an extra 10m on the full back.
So will regular kick-in exponents like Jimmy Webster, Whitfield, Nathan Wilson and Jarrod Harbrow be tasked with initiating set plays using their pace?
At Brisbane Luke Hodge (42 kicks-outs last year), Alex Witherden and Daniel Rich shared kick-in duties last year.
Does the long-kicking Rich get the lion’s share of kick-ins this year or do they back in the trusty Hodge?
At the Western Bulldogs, does Luke Beveridge task Jason Johannisen (38 kickouts this season) with attempting to play on then beat the man on the mark, using his pace to launch the ball into offensive territory?
HANDS IN THE BACK
The AFL says allowing players to protect the drop zone by protecting space with hands will allow a purer marking contest.
Instead of a recipe for over-the-back marks, it could be a recipe for disaster.
Instead of these shades of grey we previously had a concrete rule that everyone understood, which also encouraged players to leap at the ball instead of wrestle.
Now we will get weekly controversies over this rule centering on the difference between legally holding your ground with hands and extending those hands to illegally push your opponent.
Geelong has to be the main beneficiary, with Tom Hawkins the second-best one-on-one player in the league after winning 21 of his 88 marking contests outright in 2018.
Patrick Dangerfield was ranked in the top 10 this year (17.2 per cent win-rate) and often uses brute strength to hold off opponents.
Taylor Walker, Jordan De Goey, Lance Franklin and Charlie Dixon are all in the top 10, but no one wins a higher percentage of deep marking contests than Dustin Martin.
Damien Hardwick’s coaching team will spend countless hours this summer scheming and plotting.
How do they integrate Tom Lynch into their forward set up while also finding ways to isolate one of Martin, Jack Riewoldt or Lynch deep at various times.
A defender now has the fearsome reality of knowing if they play in front Martin will hold them off with hands in a marking contes, and if they play from behind he will dart away for the 15m lead-and-mark.
RISE OF THE WINGMEN
The 6-6-6 rule means the “spitter” in football is officially dead, a seventh defender who charged off the back of the square as an extra midfielder at centre bounces.
But the new centre bounce rules mean a star wingman is worth his weight in gold because he has so much room to move and only a single opponent.
Melbourne played one or two “spitters” early in the 2018 season, so how do they maximise the new rules?
With a winning ruckman like Max Gawn, do they play Nathan Jones or Angus Brayshaw off a wing then ensure Gawn taps the ball in that direction as the Demons wingman charges into the contest?
Or does that wingman charge forward when Gawn, Jack Viney and Clayton Oliver are dominating in close, allowing the Demons another forward for a few seconds after a centre bounce?
Players restricted to the 50m arc at centre bounces will flock to the contest, so a team will only have a few seconds to attempt to maximise their advantage with a winning wingman.
But North Melbourne has a headstart, boasting the third-best wingman of the past two years (Jared Polec), the fourth-best (Aaron Hall), the fifth-best (Trent Dumont) and narrowly missing on the signature of Andrew Gaff (the ninth-best).
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