AFL’s constant rule changes are baffling and mostly serve to fix problems caused by previous ones | Graham Cornes

The AFL is up to its old tricks again tweaking a series of rules ahead of the season. As Graham Cornes writes, most of them simply fix problems caused by previous changes.

Jonathon Ceglar of the Cats and Reilly O'Brien of the Crows compete in a ruck contest during. Picture: Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images

It wouldn’t be February without a raft of rule changes by the AFL.

The great irony is that some of these rule changes are being brought in to rectify problems caused by previous rule changes.

No wonder the fans complain. Take the new interpretation of ruck interference. Ruckmen are now allowed to use an arm to fend off an opponent, as long as they are making the ball their object.

It seems only yesterday that the rule was introduced so you couldn’t fend your opponent off with an arm while contesting the ruck.

We can blame ex-Port captain Matthew Primus for the original rule change. Primus perfected the technique of stepping across the line in the centre and holding his opponent at arm’s reach, then tapping the ball to one of his midfielders.

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Port coach of the day, Mark Williams, was furious. “I know for a fact that they have changed the rules because of Matthew Primus. There’s no doubt about it” he raged.

It was then a genuine ruck tactic, as long as an opponent’s jumper wasn’t held and he was shepherded out of the contest.

Subsequently, awarding a free kick for such interference in a genuine contest, when a centre clearance has become so crucial to outcome, was maddeningly frustrating.

It’s taken over 20 years for sanity to prevail and let the ruckmen sort it out themselves. One wonders if Williams or Primus feel just a twinge of vindication?

They’ve changed the rules around interchange players and substitutes – again. Instead of having to name 22 players plus one substitute – a rule that Carlton coach Michael Voss called “one of the craziest rules I’ve ever seen” – the clubs can now name 23 players and decide the medical substitute on match day.

Voss didn’t go far enough. He should have called the concept of having a medical sub a crazy rule as well. From its inception it was exploited by coaches who simply subbed a player out and activated the medical substitute for tactical reasons.

Increasing the number of interchange players and the ensuing explosion of rotations has been a blight on the game, such has it changed its look and feel.

Matthew Primus gets the upper hand over Brad Ottens Richmond v Port Adelaide. Colonial Stadium.

Toby Greene of the Giants hits Patrick Dangerfield of the Cats high in an attempt the fend off a tackle Photo by Darrian Traynor.

Remember when there were only two players on the bench? It tested the resilience and courage of the team, particularly if a player was injured early in the game.

However, let’s forget the substitute. Having come this far we may as well have 23 active players. It’s pointless having a player sit on the bench for three quarters.

Striking was on the AFL’s agenda this year. Not that footballers aren’t aware that they can’t belt an opponent.

However, this was couched in a message about fending players off, like Dustin Martin is very good at doing.

“Players must take greater responsibility for fend-offs that result in a strike on an opponent.”

Huh? Since when has that been a problem? If a fend-off goes astray and makes high contact with the tackling player, it’s always been a free kick.

Richmond’s Dustin Martin tries to fend of Jack Steele of the Saints. Picture: Michael Klein

Forgive the old-school mentality but there should be a little more leniency with striking below the head.

The forwards and the star midfielders who are most often the subject of scragging, intimidation and holding off the ball, need some method of responding because they don’t get enough protection from the umpires.

The great forwards let their opponents know immediately that they wouldn’t tolerate any of that interference.

“If you hold me, step on my toes or niggle me, I’ll punch you.”

That threat was often enough to discourage a belligerent opponent, although sometimes it did escalate. Think Scott Cummings and Rod Jameson in the very first Showdown.

But the Gary Abletts, Tony Locketts and Barry Halls of the football world never had an issue with players scragging them because the risk of violent retaliation was real.

The caution about rundown tackles driving an opponent’s head into the ground is welcomed but along with that strange comparison of fending-off to striking, came the edict putting players on notice that if they jump off the ground in an attempt to smother the ball and make subsequent high contact with the opposing player, they will be sanctioned.

Of course, it’s a reaction to the Brayden Maynard/Angus Brayshaw clash in the last year’s qualifying final.

The player attempting to smother “must take all reasonable steps to avoid making contact with their opponent’s head and/or minimise the force of any high contact”, reads the official instruction.

Jonathon Ceglar of the Cats and Reilly O'Brien of the Crows compete in a ruck contest. Photo by Dylan Burns.

But incidents like Maynard and Brayshaw happen so rarely that this seems another over-reaction from AFL House.

Players know by now that the head is sacrosanct but as the tribunal eventually decided in that case, accidents happen in football collisions.

This sounds like another attempt to weaponise the AFL head of football’s discretionary powers.

However it’s a game of high-speed contact and the modern-day player should not have to be penalised for a football accident.

It’s obvious why the AFL is overreacting. With litigation pending from an uncomfortable number of former players claiming compensation for the effects of historic concussions, it must be seen to be proactive in minimising the potential for head injury.

This is especially so in the wake of the publication of the Australia Concussion Guidelines For Youth And Community Sport by the Australian Institute of Sport in collaboration with other professional medical bodies.

If the major recommendation from this report was to be adopted it would have significant ramifications for AFL teams.

A player cannot resume competition within 21 days of a concussion if they have been symptom-free for 14 days! Most teams would be seriously impacted.

The strangest edict of all this year was the banning of coaches “whistling” from the interchange bench.

“Whistling is not something I want to see on the sideline,” said the AFL’s head of football, Laura Kane.

“It interrupts the audio of match broadcasts. For our umpires, our broadcasters and everyone on the bench, whistling won’t feature as part of our game moving forward,” she said.

How bizarre. Is this a genuine problem? Has anyone else ever noticed strange whistling sounds during the telecast?

Have you ever noticed a player stopping or being distracted by whistling from the interchange area? What will the penalty be, I wonder.

Actually, it’s reminiscent of the story that Haydn Bunton Junior used to tell about his legendary father.

The only footballer to have won three Brownlow Medals and three Sandover Medals, Haydn Bunton Senior devised a series of 10 different whistles to instruct his son how and where to position himself on the field.

It started when he was playing schoolboy football at Adelaide High School, but even when he made his debut for North Adelaide at 16, the whistling instructions continued from his father standing in the outer.

“Even then I never failed to obey those whistles,” Bunton would write later. “What the spectators standing near him thought, I’ll never know.”

All whistling aside, the new rules have been announced.

It is only a matter of time before their impact, either positive or negative, is exposed. Then we’ll need more new rules to fix those problems.

Originally published as AFL’s constant rule changes are baffling and mostly serve to fix problems caused by previous ones | Graham Cornes