Collapsing, charging with your head - the AFL are to blame for this crisis

[DJ75]

Because there's no way to rule against it consistently! It will just add many more inconsistent rulings to the game.


This issue has come about from a change in tackling method. If players continued to tackle around the hips, the vast majority of cases would not occur. However, these days tacklers are more intent on pinning the upper body. Of course there's going to be a much heightened risk of causing high contact.

The coaches are intent on playing the game in this risky fashion, these problems are on them.

I completely disagree.

Tacklers are coached to pin the arms - as they have been for many many years. The difference now is that the players with the ball aren't standing upright in the tackle. Rather they either bend or drop their knees so the tackle end up around their shoulders. This along with the now common approach of picking the ball up and then leading with your heads in to an opponent are causing the issue.

The AFL need to look at the NBA's flop rule and start to really penalise the players who are diving and the players who initiate the head high contact.

 

[Nikolai P]

It seems to me pretty impossible to police. The onus has to go onto the tackler to tackle around the hips.

How do you decide who is trying to draw a free kick, who is simply turning, who is bracing and who is shifting momentum? All of which require the ball carrier to lower their body by bending at the knees.

Impossible to create a rule to police these issues and the umpiring interpretation will be horrifically inconsistent.

You think it's bad now when there is a pretty clear demarcation point of it either being high contact or not, wait until the umpire has to make a call on what he THINKS is the player's intent.

Rubbish !!!!! head goes down , don't pay it and they will stop doing it . Revert back to the actual rules of football and it will sort it self out very quickly . The game is getting *in ugly and the players are contributing to this . And AFL fans bag the round ball fans for acting and diving . The AFL has takin it to reality TV like antics and bitch like behaviour .

 

[Effes]

Look at the free to Mitchell (Port) in the third qtr - he initiated high contact yet gets the free

Why do these incompetent hacks continue to fall for this trick?

Players who lose their footing should not get rewarded.

Players who duck into tackles should not get rewarded.

Look at Simon White last weekend - thankfully it doesn't appear to be a serious long term injury but there is now an environment where players believe that if they put their heads in danger they will be rewarded.

The AFL/umpires are to blame for this. The umpires have the ability to not get sucked in by these tactics but time and time again they get sucked in.

Don't reward players who lose their footing and subsequently get taken high. Their inability to keep their feet means they should not be rewarded!

 

[RegHickeyStand]

Player gets the ball in traffic. Player is touched. Player throws himself to the ground in the hope someone is laying a tackle and he can pull him down with him. In the back.

Every team does it.

 

[Nikolai P]

Player gets the ball in traffic. Player is touched. Player throws himself to the ground in the hope someone is laying a tackle and he can pull him down with him. In the back.

Every team does it.

You guys mastered it , now everyone follows !

 

[Effes]

9:35 left in the second qtr - S D Thompson ducks right into the tackle - should be pinged - nup, free for high.

He is a serial offender.

Umpire Dalgleish the amateur that was sucked in.

 

[Effes]

Now Motlop does it and gets a goal.

Sucked in

 

[Effes]

11:40 left last qtr - Motlop slips over and gets the free.

Players getting rewarded when they can't maintain their balanace

Pathetic

 

[base615]

11:40 left last qtr - Motlop slips over and gets the free.

Players getting rewarded when they can't maintain their balanace

Pathetic

This was an absolute disgrace of a decision

 

[Pessimistic]

Tv just showed both scott brothers perplexed at the one decision on friday

Another shocker was a geelong player holding the ball to a player his teammate had just knocked over. North player was contesting the ball had no posession

To me the geelong player was htb

In j selwoods defence he often tries to dispose even though hes milked a free. Some of thm just throw back the head but curl up around the ball at the same time, a seriously difficult and unnatural manoever.

If it hurts that much surely your grip on the ball loosens not tightens

 

[JUBJUB]

Tv just showed both scott brothers perplexed at the one decision on friday

That was the Vardy free,nothing to do with this topic

 

[Pessimistic]

That was the Vardy free,nothing to do with this topic

Just illustrating the general crapness of fridays umpiring

 

[Slax]

I reckon that the players should be charged with hed-butting. Make it only a repremand offence with 70 points, the MRP go through the weekend matches and any player who takes more than two steps after collecting the ball without trying to raise his head gets done. Whilst paying free kicks might not change the attitude, the coaches will quickly demand change as they don't want players out suspended. Will solve the problem virtually overnight

 

[Effes]

Another one

Fools! Stop rewarding it!

 

[Catfish Alley]

Just watched the Cats game with a Canadian mate and he certainly noticed the Geelong players trying to burrow under tackles. He's a Dockers fan so was getting annoyed at the frees. Not much you can say. Those are the rules and I'd imagine everyone is trying to take advantage of them.

 

[RobbieGray17]

Good to see Buddy done for HTB after ducking into a contest.

 

[red+black]

Tom Lynch put himself in hospital today thanks to ducking. Where a player is caught high because they deliberately ducked into a contest, a free kick should be awarded against them. Pure and simple, it is staging for a free kick.

So keep ducking guys. You potentially cost your club a free kick and a substitute, and neck damage for yourself.

 

[Leigh Lowther]

I should also mention that in the safer method, if contact is made front on, the players weight will shift upwards, in the second example if contact is made head on, the player is driven backwards into the ground.

So if there is high contact - Pay a free to the left example, but do not pay a free kick to the right example. That is the interpretation that should be happening.

That said, if a player is in a vulnerable position and at a halt - the onus is on the player running towards him that needs to ensure the players safety regardless of in what position he is in. So that rule is fine.

 

[Adelaide Hawk]

I watch more SANFL than AFL, but the SANFL umpires also have no idea when it comes to ducking for frees. You see it all the time, a player has the ball, then goes lower to get a free for a high tackle. The umpires fall for it all the time. THEN, a couple of weeks ago, I saw a player bend to pick up the ball. As he was straightening himself up to run, he was genuinely tackled high, and the idiot with the whistle paid holding the ball. It's very difficult to believe the umpires, or the people in charge of umpiring, have any idea whatsoever.

 

[BigTacoBandit]

The Lynch one reminded me of this

 

[red+black]

I think there was one last night in the Geelong Freo game, can't remember who, but was similar to Lynch. Player goes for the ball, bends down to pick it up, lifts his head, sees an opponent coming, so puts his head back down.

 

[Parasite]

I think there was one last night in the Geelong Freo game, can't remember who, but was similar to Lynch. Player goes for the ball, bends down to pick it up, lifts his head, sees an opponent coming, so puts his head back down.

ONE?????

 

[RobbieGray17]

The AFL make me angry.

Brisbane player was assessed for front on contact by the tribunal. FFS!!!

 

[Kickin_Goals]

Tom Lynch put himself in hospital today thanks to ducking. Where a player is caught high because they deliberately ducked into a contest, a free kick should be awarded against them. Pure and simple, it is staging for a free kick.

So keep ducking guys. You potentially cost your club a free kick and a substitute, and neck damage for yourself.

Lynch does this all the time, he isn't doing it for the free as he never gets the free for it, he breaks the tackle often in this manner.
In this situation he stands up and it's a head clash or high or either way he's going to hit the guy with his head, these things simply happen on the footy field.

 

[Hoops]

False

Joel Selwood knocked himself out in the Round 2 game vs Hawthorn last year when he put his head down and ran into Whitecross. He totally contributed to that high contact which is why the charge against Whitecross was thrown out.

This wasn't the only time either. I've lost count of the number of games I've been to (Geel vs everyone) where Selwood kept the head down and used his head as a shield and received a free kick.

Selwood's "bread and butter" is to lift his arm when tackled and hook the tackler's arm up and over his shoulder, but he has a big bag of tricks when it comes to milking free kicks and the head-charge is just another one.

A few different angles are replayed in the clip below. No attempt by Selwood to get around the stationary Whitecross. He just charges full pelt straight into him with his knees bent and his head lowered.



Bonus extras: Chris Scott also does his well-worn "If ya don't mind, umpire" routine in the coaches box.

If that's the best they have got against Selwood then it just shows he doesn't duck and ram.