All codes miss the mark if they tinker too deep

All sports are tinkering — AFL clubs are even aficionados in the dark art of tankering — as they ­attempt their annual refurbishment for the most competitive sport market in the world.

The NRL has stood down St George’s Jack de Belin and Manly’s Dylan Walker until the serious charges against them are exhausted in the court system. It is a brave and admirable judgment by Todd Greenberg and the ARL Commission. However, the true depth of their commitment to this new nobility will be examined if de Belin or Walker are found innocent. Both men have pleaded not guilty.

Football’s boss David Gallop was on the sidelines to congratulate Ante Milicic after he had coached the Matildas to a 2-0 win over New Zealand on Thursday night. It was the national women’s team’s first match since the previous, long-term coach Alen Stajcic was sacked by Gallop and the FFA commission. It all but blew up the women’s international program as Stajcic was successful and much admired by the players. But the governing body said it had no alternative after it consumed the results of two reviews.

Many thoughtful and knowledgeable people fought for the reinstatement of Stajcic. What had he done wrong? The team made the quarter-finals of the 2015 World Cup and in 2017 was ranked No 4 in the world. But FFA officials told the media that Stajcic admitted the Matilda team culture was dysfunctional. On such evidence the coach was moved on. Simply, it is the commission and the chief executive who have the power to hire or sack the coach. It is of great interest but not the business of the football community or the media. Confidentiality agreements resulted in both sides pocketing their tongues. Stajcic was moved on. And the Matildas play on.

The AFL extended its women’s competition by two teams this season. More will join next year. The league continues to experiment with its squashed and shortened version of the game — AFLX. It is designed to be played on soccer and rugby fields and facilitate the growth of football in new markets. It is relaxed, busy, good fun and ­accessible. A tantalising entry point into the expanded game.

Most importantly though the AFL has introduced a glob of new rules and adjustments to open up the game. We are having a look at them for the first time this weekend in the JLT practice match ­series. Not very impressed. Like a smoker trying to give up the fags, they start full of good intentions but as soon as play is cleared from the centre you can’t see the ball for the pall of smoke.

The player density around the ball on Thursday night in the ­Essendon-Carlton game was just as bad as ever. The AFL is a game for the coaches: they remake it every year despite the best efforts of the AFL. With a maximum of 90 interchanges available the coaches can send fresh posses out to surround the ball and close the game down whenever they want.

The league has taken a long time to realise it must restore the game, ignoring critics who had been warning them that a wonderful game was being thwarted from playing to its full potential.

The league knows it has a problem. Never better than in a letter to The Weekend Australian recently from a fleeting VFL footballer Garry Fenton, who played six games for Essendon in the early 1960s before returning to his sheep farm at Clunes. Fenton has always remained a critical part of the broad football community.

After his short but much trumpeted recruitment by Essendon he played local football back home. He continued to play on ­despite a serious back injury, retiring at 36. After that he continued coaching, worked at his local club, the league board and tribunal.

Listen to him and there will be few who disagree. “I turn the TV on with positive expectations because of the occasional terrific game (last year). I settle at the start and fairly quickly can tell what sort of a game it will be. If it’s open and fast moving with good skills I watch and enjoy. More often than not it is congested, scrappy, with poor decision-making, poor skills, which seems to bring out the aggro with players. Highly paid professional footballers should be better kicks for goal from set shots and better decision makers. Eventually I get frustrated and grab the TV remote.

“I start channel surfing and if I find something else more interesting, that’s the end of my football viewing for the night. I shake my head and question where football is heading.

“Sadly, I hear of more and more people like myself who have lost interest before halftime and earlier and change channels,” Fenton wrote.

He laments the game’s loss of simplicity, especially around the rules. He remembers the day when the game seemed to be effectively governed by 10 simple rules. Push in the back; throwing the ball; mark; trip; around the neck; out of bounds; goal between the big sticks; point between the small sticks; 18 per side and no striking opponents or umpire.

Fenton expanded: “If you ask players, club administrators or supporters today to name a few of the rules, they can only manage some of those plus some recent controversial new rules like the sling tackle, or deliberate out of bounds, which have caused a lot of discussion.

“In the 2017 Laws of Australian Football there are 83 pages written in legal-speak. The opening page lists the 14 Amended Laws for the 2017 season. (From memory, several years ago the same page noted 34 Amended Laws.) Please note: this is not changes over 50 or 100 years, this page relates to the changes in one year.”

Just wonder what Fenton thought of this week’s games when more new rules were introduced — true, to address the issues that annoy the sheep farmer and a million other supporters.

What Fenton’s letter confirms is the reality that the AFL is running out of time. Soon rule changes might not help the game. Nobody might be watching.