Rodney Eade slams quality of football being played in 2018

Rodney Eade has bemoaned the standard of football currently on offer in the AFL.

Rodney Eade: ‘If you go to a game and see 40, 50 and 60 points kicked, are you going to go more often? Probably not.’ Picture: AAP

Rodney Eade has bemoaned the standard of football currently on offer in the AFL, believing a focus on defensive intent is reducing the code’s entertainment value.

Earlier this season, premiership coach Damien Hardwick pondered whether the game might be trending towards being more high-scoring and free-flowing in 2018.

But since then, scores have dipped significantly with the skill level of players and the overall depth of the competition questioned.

The round of football that extended to Anzac Day was the lowest-scoring round since 1996.

The average score per team this year is 79.6 per game, which is the lowest to this point of a season since 1968. And as it stands, the competition is on track to record its most inaccurate season in almost three decades, with a conversion rate of 51.67 per cent (not including shots that miss everything).

Eade lamented that last weekend “there were only four teams that scored 100 points” and that seven kicked less than 70 in perfect conditions for football.

Richmond kicked the highest score for the round with 16.17 (113).

“It was lovely conditions all over Australia. There was no rain,” Eade said.

To emphasise just how much the game has changed, last weekend’s AFL Record showcased a match from round 6, 1978 between the bottom two sides of the previous season — Melbourne and St Kilda.

The article, titled The Day It Rained Goals detailed an incredible scoring fest.

According to former Hawks and Saints player Russell Greene, the match was played in “perfect conditions, dead still and everything clicked”. Much the same, it seems, as the weekend just passed. Yet in 1978 St Kilda kicked 31.18 (204) to defeat Melbourne 21.15 (141).

It is the highest scoring aggregate in a game, with the next four top aggregates occurring between 1985 and 1993.

“Obviously our defence wasn’t too flash because they kicked a heap of goals as well,” Greene said.

More goals, of course, does not necessarily equate to better football. And the teams inside the top eight, as well as Geelong, Collingwood and Fremantle, have all played some exciting, quality football this season.

But as Eade, who played in three premierships with Hawthorn and coached the Swans, Western Bulldogs and the Gold Coast, noted some have been shockers.

“The Friday night game was hard to watch. It was difficult to watch. Melbourne and Essendon was difficult to watch. That is going to happen every round. There is going to be some difficult games,” he told RSN 927.

“It is difficult to watch. But I put on the hat of the supporters and think globally about how the game is going to look and are people going to drop off.

“Are people going to watch it? If you go to a game and see 40, 50 and 60 points kicked, are you going to go more often? Probably not. You’ll go and do something else. That is what my concern is.

“There are so many other things to do and we are in the entertainment business. You can cut it up however you like. Us 40-year-old plus (fans), we are going to whinge and moan about it but we’re still going to watch footy. But the 15 to 30-year-olds will leave and they won’t be entertained and that’s my concern for the game.”

Various ideas have been raised as potential solutions, including the possibility of removing the cap on interchange, and even requiring players to start in zones.

Sydney coach John Longmire believes a newly-formed competition committee — devised by AFL football operations manager Steve Hocking and featuring coaches, players and club administrators — is well suited to discuss the issue. But he does not believe there is an epidemic of bad football. “It can easily be forgotten the number of poor games there have been over the generations and a couple of bad ones get a lot of press,’’ Longmire told 3AW.

“It is interesting, this new committee, looking at these issues will be something on the agenda and it’s worth looking at.

“I am not opposed to looking at different ways of looking at things. I am not one to say leave the game alone completely. But let’s do it with perspective. There has been a lot of bad footy played over the years that didn’t get the viewing it does these days.”