Dealing with congestion

cleomenes

Cancelled
Nov 18, 2010
1,483
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AFL Club
Collingwood
The game is now a congested unsightly mess, looking similar to what it did on a wet, windy day in the sixties. Unless the AFL deals with this, the prospects for the game are poor.
The culprits are the coaches. They want to control play, and numbers around the ball is their answer.
The tool that lets them do this is the interchange. Players are able to run very fast to clog up play, and get a rest before they have to do it again.
If the coaches can't be made to give up repeated interchanges as a tactical tool rather than the injury management tool it was introduced as, then the AFL will have to change rules to spread the players out.
To minimize the lines on the field, but maximize their effect, I suggest that the following is considered.
1. Extend the end lines of the centre square to the boundary.
2. Require each team to have a fixed number of players within the section of the field with the goals whenever there is a bounce or boundary throw in. 6 each would be good. Fewer might work.
3. Boundary umpires act as line judges for this.
4. If a team transgresses (not enough players in its end zone, be they attackers or defenders), then the bounce or throw in is moved to the square extension that favours their opposition. No free kicks involved, just loss of territory.
5. Outside of stoppages, players may be wherever they like.
6. No particular players have to be in the end zones, only a minimum number.

The future of the game is under threat from within. The solution above may not be the answer, but something drastic is required or defensive tactics will strangle the game as a spectacle. Fewer players is probably not the solution, as they will still all be clustered wherever the ball is.
Copyright Cleomenes
 
Aug 1, 2008
15,149
25,674
AFL Club
Western Bulldogs
Not entirely crazy but there are a couple of more palatable interim steps before something quite that drastic is considered

Step 1
Interchange restricted to between quarters and for genuine injuries

Step 2
No prior opportunity at all

If this fails
Then consider
Zone positions at stoppages

I suspect step 1 would improve things
Step 2 guaranteed to keep ball moving
 

deano the hawka

All Australian
Sep 29, 2006
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How about they do like in U18 championships and make it that there has to be at least 5 players in the front half at any point in the game. Reduces numbers around a defensive/offensive stoppage.
 
Aug 1, 2008
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AFL Club
Western Bulldogs
You know the prior opportunity first reared its head to punish a player who was stripped of the ball after having had a chance to dispose of it
Slowly It's evolved to protect players who hold on to the ball in a tackle

And so they do

The current thinking is that a player should have the right to take possession regardless of the circumstances

The umpire is asked to repeatedly make the subjective decision of whether a player caught in possession has had adequate time and whether they are genuinely attempting to dispose of the ball

The result is that our game has increased repeated stoppages which often appear like rugby union scrimmages

It is high time we trial no prior opportunity in the preseason nab cup

Personally I suspect a whole host of problems will disappear, opening up the game - increasing scoring and unpredictability
 
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Aug 1, 2008
15,149
25,674
AFL Club
Western Bulldogs
the learned gentleman on the couch canvases a catalogue of solutions to this plague of stoppages but not the freakin obvious.

arent the stoppages around the ground caused by players who are caught in possession?
Introducing Zones or reduced rotations may have some indirect bearing but even in centre square bounces we have secondary, tertiary or a fourth stoppages.

So Gerard and friends if you are going to discuss stoppages around the ground please at least identify the cause - player caught in possession.

Let's discuss how and why players are being caught In possession in increasing numbers. Perhaps then we might reach some understanding and maybe even some solution before we completely destroy the game with netball zones.

What should happen when a player is caught in possession? How do. We reduce this occurrence? This is the only path to reducing the current increase of stoppages and the ugly football it encourages.

Once you identify cause and effect correctly remarkable solutions open up to otherwise stubborn or insolvable issues. Imagine if a player caught in possession is penalized. But a player in possession who is tackled to the ground is likely to spill the ball and play on is called - Then these tackles designed to hurt would disappear altogether. Sending more and more players to stoppage would become problematic as either a free kick or a quick outage is guaranteed to occur.

The player in possession who is unable or refuses to dispose of the ball is our problem.
Adjudicating when this is deliberate or accidental is not only a fools errand - it's just wrong and invites a range of negative consequences : higher Impact tackles, favouring strength over skills, favouring inside football, permitting more time for teams to flood back, encourages searching for the boundary, stronger and stronger midfielders are required to tackle stronger and stronger bodies. - causing higher impact collisions.

but imagine how much easier this game would be to umpire - of course we don't want that
 
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The Swert

Premiership Player
May 3, 2009
3,508
4,707
Melbourne
AFL Club
Hawthorn
What if you banned the handpass? That would force players to kick out of congestion and it would be like the 1960s again.
 

Brian Schmutt

Debutant
Jun 28, 2015
65
81
AFL Club
GWS
What if you banned the handpass? That would force players to kick out of congestion and it would be like the 1960s again.

There was a controversial suggestion before the season started to encourage players, at stoppages, to blow on the ball. Hands would need to be pinned behind the back, with heads down and bums up. The first team to blow the ball 50cm forward would awarded a free kick. We trialed this in a few under 14 practice matches, but there was some....unpleasantness... with a few parents and we we asked by police to scrap the idea.

But the good thing about Cambo is he's always thinking.
 
Aug 1, 2008
15,149
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AFL Club
Western Bulldogs
Even children know that to refuse to share the ball around is wrong

They who take possession of our greAt ball but do not move it on are an evil blight upon the world.

Do not believe their lies that they had no opportunity that they don't have the strength - there heart are evil
For they alone decide to take possession they know the circumstances they knnow and thus willfully they kill the game

Shun them, cast them out - they must be punished severely
 

Brian Schmutt

Debutant
Jun 28, 2015
65
81
AFL Club
GWS
Even children know that to refuse to share the ball around is wrong

They who take possession of our greAt ball but do not move it on are an evil blight upon the world.

Do not believe their lies that they had no opportunity that they don't have the strength - there heart are evil
For they alone decide to take possession they know the circumstances they knnow and thus willfully they kill the game

Shun them, cast them out - they must be punished severely

 

Maddo11

Norm Smith Medallist
Apr 17, 2010
7,165
9,880
AFL Club
Sydney
The simplest and easiest way to stop congestion would be 1. Blow the whistle as soon as there's more than 3 blokes in a tackle (assuming no free kick) and 2. actually pay Deliberate out of bounds more than once every month.
 

Hawkerzz

Debutant
Mar 12, 2011
137
303
AFL Club
Hawthorn
The simplest and easiest way to stop congestion would be 1. Blow the whistle as soon as there's more than 3 blokes in a tackle (assuming no free kick)

Spot on. Pay a free kick against the first guy who tackles the tackler as he has no right to. Not sure how that even creeped into our game.
 
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