AFL scoring at alarming 52-year low, prompting suggestions rule changes have ‘backfired’
New rules were supposed to open up the game, but scoring is the lowest since 1965. Has the six-six-six set-up backfired, are coaches to blame or is something else going on?
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Paul Roos sensed it early in the Carlton vs Richmond season-opener.
“We just couldn’t work out what was going on, we were thinking: ‘Geez, it’s a very stagnant game’,” Roos said.
“And then you thought, ‘Well, hang on — wing on wing, there’s no release quick kick out of defence’ and it just became a slow game really quickly.”
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The average score across the opening-round of matches under the AFL’s raft of rule changes slumped to 78.7 — the lowest since Sir Robert Menzies was in The Lodge in 1965.
“The game looks great, the scoring will come,” the experts told us.
But it hasn’t.
After eight rounds, scoring remains stalled at an alarming 52-year-low.
Adelaide Crows coach Don Pyke broke ranks on Saturday night by declaring the rule changes had created a more defensive, contested brand of footy — the complete opposite of the league’s intentions.
“There's always a ripple for every rule change," Pyke said.
“The game has changed … the reality now, if you look at the scores, there aren't many games with scores over 100.
“Sides' defensive actions have become really strong and scoring is difficult. I don't know what the AFL is going to do about it."
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It’s a debate that has divided the AFL commentariat. In one camp are the sceptics who urged caution, and in the other, advocates of intervention.
Despite the scoring slowdown, AFL supremo Gillon McLachlan declared on Saturday that the new rules had “created more space” and a more aesthetically pleasing product.
“The game to my eye is more open … for some reason the scoring isn’t up … but the footy is better,” McLachlan said.
League football boss Steve Hocking, whose hand-picked game analysis team enforced the changes around starting positions, kick-ins and runners, told club bosses at a meeting in Werribee on Tuesday that he felt the game had improved and had a “better feel”.
But there’s a counter view the six-six-six rule has stifled attacking play.
“I think what Don is saying is right and it makes sense,” Roos said.
“There’s just more balls going to a one-on-one, two-on-two, three-on-three or four-on-four contest.
“In speaking to a number of coaches over the last month, they’re finding it really difficult to change the game because there’s no runner — the inability to slide someone back or push a forward up to a stoppage or create an extra number somewhere.
“And guys seem to be staying in the six-six-six for a long period of time … and not then moving into their natural positions.
“Sometimes coaches do have ulterior motives when they speak at a press conference, but I don’t think Don Pyke seems to be that sort of person.
“What he’s saying is what I’m observing.”
Has it backfired?
“It depends on what the AFL’s mandate was,” Roos said. “If the AFL wanted to increase scoring, well clearly it’s backfired.
“It looks good when you start the game, there’s no secondary ball-ups, so there have been some positives, but if the AFL were trying to increase scoring it just hasn’t happened.
“But you’re talking to someone that didn’t see the need for change … we were coming off one of the great Grand Finals of all time.”
As the AFL pitched its case for change last year, footy broadcaster Channel 7 went public with its wish for higher scoring.
“I want more goals … That's the most valuable 30 seconds of screen real estate in Australian television, aside from the 30 seconds after an over,” network chief Tim Worner declared.
Hocking spruiked a spike in scoring by teams involved in VFL trials, an outcome he conceded this week had not eventuated.
A bizarre 18m goalsquare was also endorsed by Hocking’s “competition committee” before being rejected by the AFL commission.
James Podsiadly, a member of Hocking’s team, this week declared on the Jock and Journo podcast that “scoring gets talked about a lot … but it’s not the be all and end all”.
He cited goal kicking accuracy, down slightly from 47.3 per cent last year to 45.8 per cent, as another factor.
A still frame shot from the opening bounce of the 2017 Grand Final captures Richmond with just four forwards and two extra players charging off the back of the square as “offensive weapons” — no longer an option under the six-six-six system.
The counter argument is that teams are powerless to clog the backline in the dying stages of games such as Saturday night’s Gold Coast-Melbourne game.
High-scoring teams such as Adelaide and Melbourne have reverted to a more defensive system in recent weeks in a bid to turn around their seasons.
Footy analyst David King believes it’s coaching, not the rules, suffocating scoring.
“My theory is that every facet of coaching over the last five to 10 years that has come into the game is about denying the opposition the ability to move the football from their defensive half of the ground forward,” King said.
“So it’s get it in, lock it in and take away the space.
“On top of that, teams are also now defending with the footy. They’re not interested in scoring because they’re just taking time off the clock.
“This year the average score from the defensive half per game is 30 points, and it’s lowering every year. Last year it was 33 points.
“If you go back to 2010 it was 38 points and 45 points in 2005.”
King said the impact of the six-six-six rule at centre bounces only “lasted for about 20 seconds”.
“The game has become more scientific about where you kick the football,” he said.
“Teams have a greater understanding of how you score and how you give up scores, and therefore they don’t take great risks with the ball.
“I know it’s a boring answer, but it’s true.”
He believes further rule changes are inevitable.
“The only way to create more scores is to keep the ball in motion. Making the boundary line the enemy and a stricter interpretation of prior opportunity would speed the game up and cause more turnovers, therefore causing more scores,” he said.
“If you’re happy with the game, fine, leave it, but I understand the need for more scoring. “We’ve got to keep money in the game — that’s the bottom line for all of us — and to do that, we need to have more ads.
“We can argue that the game is great but everyone needs to take a 30 per cent clip — it’s not going to happen.”
Scoring from centre bounces is slightly up, but the revamped kick-in rule is having little impact.
“All you are doing is getting the ball an extra 15m out of your danger zone,” 1990 Collingwood premiership hero Mick McGuane said.
Six-six-six starting positions for every stoppage are being pushed as a more radical solution.
“If you are looking to get fast-play movement from the back-half …. six-six-six at all stoppages would be a disaster,” Roos said.
“There would be no free players anywhere and no ball movement coming out.
“There’s enough evidence now to suggest that would curtail scoring rather than increase it.”
The elephant in the room is interchange rotations — a lever the AFL has refused to pull, despite pleas from a lobby led by legend Kevin Bartlett.
When scoring hit its high-water mark off 112.1 points a team back in 1982, footy was essentially a game of 18 versus 18 and the two benchwarmers were seen as back ups for injury or form unlike today’s even spread of 22 against 22.
The rotation system today — capped at 90 — means eight fringe players are involved in every match, 72 each weekend across an expanded competition.
The skill level spinning off a diluted talent pool is seen by some at an all-time low.
“It’s hard to score if you can’t handball the ball from A to B — it doesn’t matter what the rules are,” Roos said.
Another point of contention was the AFL’s failure to trial the new rules for a full season at lower levels.
Roos says the only rule change he can remember being “thoroughly tested” was the circle to protect ruckman at the centre bounce.
“When they did that and had a whole lot of guys working collectively together they were able to come up with a solution,” he said.
“Pykey made a really good point in that no-one really knows the effect of the rules changes until we bring them in — or you could trial it in the NAB Cup for the whole period and NAB Cup next year and then you’ve got a really good sample — and that’s what they should have done … but the AFL like to do things and no-one will deter them from doing it, so it doesn’t really matter what anyone else thinks, to be honest.”
As for scoring, Roos says it could “potentially” fall back further in the second half of the season.
“If you are looking at the high-scoring, aggressive, back-half teams, like Essendon and the Giants, once you stop them it’s very hard for them to score at all,” he said.
“What we do know anyway is defence always wins premierships, so it will be interesting to see where it all ends up.”
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