KB says the AFL Commission knows "stuff all"

[Riccardo11]

The game is becoming like Union, with convoluted rules that are open to wide and shockingly varied interpretation.

They should get rid of at least 80% of the changes made in the last 10 years, and revert back to a game people actually want to watch instead of being reactionary and changing the rules every season for no reason.

They have made a beautiful game very ugly.

 

[Marlin01]

A lot of the "softer" rules have been introduced in response to former players suffering life-impacting brain damage, as a result of multiple concussions. Pretty horrible stuff, which no footy fan would wish on any past or present player. Whether the rule changes will have the desired impact, only time will tell.

 

[Randy Campbell]

You can't leave the rules alone now, they have been changed to much.
Return the rules to what they were in 1990 and then leave them alone forever.

You sound a little like KB. "Back in my day it was better"

 

[BallaratBulldog]

Shut up KB.

 

[Bardo State]

Ahhhh, the old 'footy was better back in my day' crew.

 

[Blueyboy74]

Don't think he is playing the it was "better in my day" card, more saying there were none of these rugby league mauls.

People should play the ball on this topic and not the man as it's a pretty bloody important issue.

In consecutive weeks, with different outcomes personally, my two most memorable contests have been Martin v Tuohy in Round 2 and Gia v Ellis in Round 3. Both genuine one-on-one contests that we hardly see these days ...

 

[dazbroncos]

The best bit is the part where he does not like being ignored. HA. Now you know how it feels to be a supporter of an AFL club.

Get used to it KB.

GO Catters

 

[Randy Campbell]

In the 70's and 80's no body could of seen every game played over the weekend.
But now you can watch, on TV all the games.
So really how do people know? Is it the vibe?

 

[greatwhiteshark]

In the 70's and 80's no body could of seen every game played over the weekend.
But now you can watch, on TV all the games.
So really how do people know? Is it the vibe?

There has been much that the AFL has done that is great.
Like as you said we can watch every game, large TV rights etc etc

But that has nothing to do with what we are talking about. The game needed no rule changes and we have had 100's of them.
The only rule change I agree with in the last 30 years is making the head sacrosanct. But I still don't agree with accidental head high contact being penalized.
Removing the king hits and thuggery was also needed and that has been done.
But the rules of the sport needed not to be touched. It was not broke so why fix them. Huge crowds attended and everyone loved our game.
So why did any rules change?

 

[yodellinhank]

Should rugby have more interchanges to promote rolling mauls?

 

[Tas]

A lot of the "softer" rules have been introduced in response to former players suffering life-impacting brain damage, as a result of multiple concussions. Pretty horrible stuff, which no footy fan would wish on any past or present player. Whether the rule changes will have the desired impact, only time will tell.

You can get equally severe concussion smacking your head on a solid object like a cupboard, which has less give then flesh or grass and causes the brain to hit the skull. You can't just draw a line and say it is footy, how many of these guys go to pubs and nightclubs and get involved in fights, are accident prone, do other activities which can cause concussion.

Life isn't a bubble where you don't get hurt and die, there is risks even if you don't leave your own home. I think it is good we reduce the number of head high impacts in the game but there is no guarantee that players wont still suffer life-impacting brain damage, you just reduce the probability somewhat.

The problem with most of the study into concussion related brain damage is it doesn't compare the findings with similar people who have similar lifestyles who do not play professional sports, comparing them to Jo Average who sits at a work desk for 8 hours and then goes home and sits on his arse in front of the TV for the rest of their waking hours is going to show some disturbing variances.

However, a lot of footballers are alpha males, they are more aggressive naturally, they are bigger and fueled by testosterone and will have a very different lifestyle to the average male, even if they do not play football. The study needs to compare like to like.

 

[TedDougChris]

KB talks s**t, there's no doubt about that.

But there is a definite lack of football supporters on the commission.

You reckon any of them sit down and actually watch multiple games of footy a week, and have done their whole lives?

You think you could sit down and have a proper chinwag with them about footy like you can with most people in Melbourne? And I mean footy - not the business or finances of it.

You couldn't. They're not football people.

The counter to that is would you want KB, Tony Shaw and Douglas Hawkins on the commission ??? The game would be ruined in a few years.... You do need a balance on the commission (as it's not just about football rules but the future growth and development of the code - on and off field) but AD, Mark Evans and Chris Langford are three who have played at the highest level... (NB - I think they are on the commission.... )

 

[clogged]

Players are never fitter, never more skillful, never bigger. This all adds up to more players getting to the ball, more players being able to keep the ball in possession, and more players able to hit contests hard.

Maybe the issue is that Australian football is a fundamentally poorly designed sport whose glory days were in essence a result of the fact attitudes to training and development were amateurish. You can't go back in time and at the same time give the fans what they want in terms of high level support.

If you think that the AFL will be over taken by soccer then there is a simple solution: go watch soccer.

 

[Lockyer24]

KB tinkered with the rules to create confusion for years and reckons one year out of the role the games stuffed. Utter moron.

This year has finally been a step in the right direction even if our full forward has lost out as a result.

 

[The Cryptkeeper]

KB is a crusty, decrepid, senile old man.

 

[didaksrightfoot]

This just smells of bitterness.

There are often changes that people don't agree with, but for the most part they are trying to make the game both safer, and more attractive to fans (which is where all the money comes from - without fans professional sport would not exist).

And there may be some who would rather watch the game of old, before the current era of professionalism and development - but they would be a minority compared to the overall population of fans.

(and those statements could be applied to pretty much every professional sport around the world).
---

As for his statement about soccer overtaking AFL... that is incredibly laughable. (I am a soccer fan, and for years there have been more juniors playing soccer than football... but there is no risk of the A-League become anywhere near as big as the AFL)

 

[Modified Dog]

The game is becoming like Union, with convoluted rules that are open to wide and shockingly varied interpretation.

They should get rid of at least 80% of the changes made in the last 10 years, and revert back to a game people actually want to watch instead of being reactionary and changing the rules every season for no reason.

They have made a beautiful game very ugly.

This is so wrong.

This is also where KB loses me.

Fact: the reason why our game now resembles rugby (with the rolling mauls) and soccer (with the chip-chip possession-play) is because the AFL coaches have coached their teams to play like that. They've studied other sports around the world and they've elevated Australian Football in a tactical sense (but to the detriment of the game as a spectacle.)

It is so misguided to blame "interchanges and rotations" for this, as KB has done. The AFL could remove the interchange bench completely and revert to 18 a side, but the coaches would still instruct their players to crowd the stoppages, get numbers around the ball and then spread quickly and use chip passes to hold onto possession at all costs. KB is backwards to think otherwise. He is stuck in the past, but there is no going back.

Defense is here to stay. The open attacking play of yesteryear will never be allowed to reign unchecked like it was. This is what coaches get paid so much money to do: to stop the opposition.

It is also misguided for others to blame the "constant rule changes" for the declining spectacle. If you actually analyse the rule changes, there hasn't been as many as people like to think and they've mostly had a positive effect anyway. Quick kick-ins, diving on the ball, hands in the back, harsher deliberate out of bounds… People will whinge about anything, but they don't really think about how footy would be without these rule changes. The angry fans are simply making a knee jerk reaction to "unfair" free kicks.

tl;dr Blame the coaches, not the interchanges or the rule changes

If the AFL really wants to improve the game as a spectacle, then they must get rid of the coaches. Ban them altogether. Let the players think for themselves and play on instinct like they used to. And while they're at it, tell them to ban cars, sugar additives and the internet.

 

[Zahki]

Ahhhh, the old 'footy was better back in my day' crew.

Yep 20 years from now we'll have rules changes for people pining for the good old days of rolling scrums. Nostalgia is a powerful drug.

Maybe the issue is that Australian football is a fundamentally poorly designed sport whose glory days were in essence a result of the fact attitudes to training and development were amateurish. You can't go back in time and at the same time give the fans what they want in terms of high level support.

Bingo. Coaches and players understand the game better than ever before, it's very naive to think that the evolution of the game has been anything other than an arms race to find the best strategies to win games. You don't like how some of the gameplans look? Tough t***ies, rotation caps won't change anything, nothing will other than a fundamental change of some of the rules, think netball style zones. Nobody wants that, so how about we stop tinkering with the rules to force the game to conform to an aesthetic standard that is long gone.

 

[Riccardo11]

This is so wrong.

This is also where KB loses me.

Fact: the reason why our game now resembles rugby (with the rolling mauls) and soccer (with the chip-chip possession-play) is because the AFL coaches have coached their teams to play like that. They've studied other sports around the world and they've elevated Australian Football in a tactical sense (but to the detriment of the game as a spectacle.)

It is so misguided to blame "interchanges and rotations" for this, as KB has done. The AFL could remove the interchange bench completely and revert to 18 a side, but the coaches would still instruct their players to crowd the stoppages, get numbers around the ball and then spread quickly and use chip passes to hold onto possession at all costs. KB is backwards to think otherwise. He is stuck in the past, but there is no going back.

Defense is here to stay. The open attacking play of yesteryear will never be allowed to reign unchecked like it was. This is what coaches get paid so much money to do: to stop the opposition.

It is also misguided for others to blame the "constant rule changes" for the declining spectacle. If you actually analyse the rule changes, there hasn't been as many as people like to think and they've mostly had a positive effect anyway. Quick kick-ins, diving on the ball, hands in the back, harsher deliberate out of bounds… People will whinge about anything, but they don't think ow the game was or would be without these rule changes.

tl;dr Blame the coaches, not the interchanges or the rule changes

One could argue that the rules were changed BECAUSE the coaches were using those tactics, and the rule makers were attempting to keep up with the challenges this caused (higher injury tolls, player fatigue, lower scores, slowing the game down, playing for free kicks to keep possession, etc).

 

[Riccardo11]

Ahhhh, the old 'footy was better back in my day' crew.

It's pretty hard to argue it wasn't in this case.

Watch a game from the early to mid 1990s and then try to sit through one from the last few years and get back to me.

 

[Modified Dog]

One could argue that the rules were changed BECAUSE the coaches were using those tactics, and the rule makers were attempting to keep up with the challenges this caused (higher injury tolls, player fatigue, lower scores, slowing the game down, playing for free kicks to keep possession, etc).

They would be wrong.

The AFL and rules committee were always just playing catch-up with the coaches. They make a handful of cosmetic rule changes which have very little overall effect, but everyone goes mental.

Everything which people hate about the game as a spectacle is due to players becoming smarter and better coached - in both an individual sense (negating their opponent in a contest, adhering to structures and discipline, removing all of the flair, no torps, no kick to contests = no speckies, etc) and also in a team sense (flooding, numbers behind the ball, playing the percentages, eliminating risk)


Edit: another example is players staging for frees. Not the obvious ones which get highlighted in the media, but the constant staging which makes it almost compulsory if you wanna receive a free kick from the umps. Back in the old days, every team used to have 2 or 3 canny stagers who could milk a free. Today's players are smarter and better coached - they've all become experts at conning the umpires. Today's AFL footy now resembles soccer with all the cheating that goes on.

 

[Zahki]

It's pretty hard to argue it wasn't in this case.

Watch a game from the early to mid 1990s and then try to sit through one from the last few years and get back to me.

I disagree, I think games today are played at a much higher standard and more exciting to watch, even the ones that devolve into scrums. What now?

 

[Eaglemaniac]

This is so wrong.

This is also where KB loses me.

Fact: the reason why our game now resembles rugby (with the rolling mauls) and soccer (with the chip-chip possession-play) is because the AFL coaches have coached their teams to play like that. They've studied other sports around the world and they've elevated Australian Football in a tactical sense (but to the detriment of the game as a spectacle.)

It is so misguided to blame "interchanges and rotations" for this, as KB has done. The AFL could remove the interchange bench completely and revert to 18 a side, but the coaches would still instruct their players to crowd the stoppages, get numbers around the ball and then spread quickly and use chip passes to hold onto possession at all costs. KB is backwards to think otherwise. He is stuck in the past, but there is no going back.

Defense is here to stay. The open attacking play of yesteryear will never be allowed to reign unchecked like it was. This is what coaches get paid so much money to do: to stop the opposition.

It is also misguided for others to blame the "constant rule changes" for the declining spectacle. If you actually analyse the rule changes, there hasn't been as many as people like to think and they've mostly had a positive effect anyway. Quick kick-ins, diving on the ball, hands in the back, harsher deliberate out of bounds… People will whinge about anything, but they don't really think about how footy would be without these rule changes. They just make knee jerk reactions to "unfair" free kicks.

tl;dr Blame the coaches, not the interchanges or the rule changes

Thats not entirely correct mate. The coaches dont change the umpires calls, such as our current situation where the only guy going for the ball is penalized if he happens to get there first and then the next guy runs into him and falls over, so the first guy gets penalized for taking out the other guys legs accidentally. Another one is the holding the ball rule where someone just holds the ball in under the guy who actually made an attempt to get it and pass it on. Now its a case of wait til someone else gets the ball and then just hold it under them and get a free. Its baffling some of the calls that get made these days by the umpires.
I know there has been some changes made for safety, and trying to protect the head is good, but not when you cant even bump someone without getting rubbed out for three weeks. Also, if you bump someone who isnt looking, thats not your fault, thats the guy who has the ball not being aware of the situation, it shouldnt be a free or a weeks suspension. Players should be taught to be 360 degree aware which is what most of us were taught as juniors.

Thats not the coaches, thats the rules being changed to the detriment of the game. As someone said, accidents happen in all walks of life and we can try and protect people as much as possible, but in the end when you sign a contract to be an AFL player you know you are signing up to play a physical game that could cause injury, so if you dont want to take that chance then you might need to look at another profession.
I dont want people to get hurt unnecessarily, or for thuggery to be part of the game like it was back in the 80's, but it should be a hard, fair contest, where the small guys have their advantages and the big guys have theirs, because thats the way it has always been. The game needs to be protected as well.

 

[Riccardo11]

I disagree, I think games today are played at a much higher standard and more exciting to watch, even the ones that devolve into scrums. What now?

You are welcome to your opinion, but I have to disagree.

That's what now.

 

[greatwhiteshark]

Thats not entirely correct mate. The coaches dont change the umpires calls, such as our current situation where the only guy going for the ball is penalized if he happens to get there first and then the next guy runs into him and falls over, so the first guy gets penalized for taking out the other guys legs accidentally. Another one is the holding the ball rule where someone just holds the ball in under the guy who actually made an attempt to get it and pass it on. Now its a case of wait til someone else gets the ball and then just hold it under them and get a free. Its baffling some of the calls that get made these days by the umpires.
I know there has been some changes made for safety, and trying to protect the head is good, but not when you cant even bump someone without getting rubbed out for three weeks. Also, if you bump someone who isnt looking, thats not your fault, thats the guy who has the ball not being aware of the situation, it shouldnt be a free or a weeks suspension. Players should be taught to be 360 degree aware which is what most of us were taught as juniors.

Thats not the coaches, thats the rules being changed to the detriment of the game. As someone said, accidents happen in all walks of life and we can try and protect people as much as possible, but in the end when you sign a contract to be an AFL player you know you are signing up to play a physical game that could cause injury, so if you dont want to take that chance then you might need to look at another profession.
I dont want people to get hurt unnecessarily, or for thuggery to be part of the game like it was back in the 80's, but it should be a hard, fair contest, where the small guys have their advantages and the big guys have theirs, because thats the way it has always been. The game needs to be protected as well.

This is so right.

The coaches didn't bring in the Hands in the back rule, The Chopping the arms rule, The bring the ball back in play before the flag is waived rule, The deliberate out of bounds rule for kicking to touch, the allowing to throw the ball rule, the allowing to dispose of it incorrectly, the rule to not reward the tackler, the bump rule where accidents are penalized.

The coaches did none of this. The AFL did it and none of it was required. We were all happy with the sport, we went in our droves to watch it, we watched on tv in our millions.
No need to change a thing.
So why did they? No one asked for there to be changes.