Four rounds in, what's changed?

[Benny78]

Melbourne and Richmond are cooked. Geelong gold Hawthorn silver. Essendon terrible Brisbane amazing. Freo and Carlton same old.

Brisbane to win the flag and receive a home prelim at the Gabba

 

[Wackajack]

Congestion is caused by reluctance to pay the frees that are there. Eras of free flowing footy had higher free kick counts.

If you want flowing footy, pay the frees. As soon as a free is paid, players spread. Let it go or ball it up? You get congestion.

Not sometimes, all the time.

This, and make the player return the ball to the umpire straight away instead of the infringed player, the umpire can then give the ball to the right player straight away and game on.

 

[The King!]

ive either started my descent into grumpy old man status or the game is not as good as it was, I am not sure which

 

[dcutter]

I tend to find myself more inclined to not to watch the first 10 mins of a game where its typically a defensive shitfest with little to no scoring.

Find myself tuning in even after quarter time on some games where it usually breaks open as players fatigue more.

I really don’t like the non runner rules.
Seems a completely irrelevant rule and could be playing a larger hand at low scores than we realise.

 

[dylan93]

Teams still trying to adapt to these new sh*thouse rules.

 

[Shadow89]

I counted over 10 times on Saturday that a GWS player was running from the contest holding the ball and the umpire just would not pay holding the ball. Happened a couple of times with Cats players too. Nothing against GWS, as they were definitely the superior team, but by the end, I was like 'they just won't f*cking pay holding the ball.' Then you see other games, where if you even touch it, they call 'ball.' It's such a bullshit rule, and needs to go, as it's completely the umpires interpretation now, and is deciding matches left right and centre.

Also, the 'stiff arm' ruck nonsense, where ruck frees are being paid continuously. Ben Brown's ridiculous pirouette with a double pike somersault layered on, is exactly why these frees shouldn't be paid. Bartel said it on AAA perfectly: 'I don't get it. It's a contest of strength. If you're stronger than the other guy, how is that a free kick?'

...And don't get me started on high contact/vs in the back/vs contact below the knees. It's a f*cking raffle for what call you're gonna get nowadays

 

[RookiePick]

Holding the ball (and throws) is all they need to fix, to address this.

They started allowing players to drop/push the ball forward a few years ago, now it gets caught in congestion, players hold it in, etc.

Pretty much this. Letting the ball be "knocked free in the tackle" is the number one factor allowing congested, rolling maul tactics to be effective. You see more players get pinged for holding the ball by successfully throwing a boot at it or getting a scrappy handpass away than you do for dropping the footy. Ridiculous.

It just draws players to the contest because there is zero incentive to try and force out a little kick or handpass under pressure, which would force players to hold off the contest. Just lay an egg and maul the ball forward until you force a stoppage or take possession through weight of numbers.

 

[Quivorir]

call me dumb but I haven't noticed a limited six times three lazy round the ground partition...

if you know what I mean then you know what I mean.. there is still a glut of players overall

Anyone wanna help me out on this one?

 

[King Elvis]

Pretty much this. Letting the ball be "knocked free in the tackle" is the number one factor allowing congested, rolling maul tactics to be effective. You see more players get pinged for holding the ball by successfully throwing a boot at it or getting a scrappy handpass away than you do for dropping the footy. Ridiculous.

It just draws players to the contest because there is zero incentive to try and force out a little kick or handpass under pressure, which would force players to hold off the contest. Just lay an egg and maul the ball forward until you force a stoppage or take possession through weight of numbers.

It is so bloody obvious, and it has been for years; these rolling mauls started when they loosened up the HTB rule to 'let the game flow more.'

Well, it sort of achieved that, but, as is always the case with the AFL, they changed a rule which created more problems than the one they were trying to fix.

 

[Coaster2012]

full time umpires need to come in. Shocked they aren't already.

 

[Mitchell Madness]

Congestion is caused by reluctance to pay the frees that are there. Eras of free flowing footy had higher free kick counts.

If you want flowing footy, pay the frees. As soon as a free is paid, players spread. Let it go or ball it up? You get congestion.

Not sometimes, all the time.

And paying the wrong frees. They're too quick to pay a free In a pack of 10. They pay frees for a 70m kick that dribbles out. All it does is contest more.
Call a throw in, watch how quickly teams start putting numbers back when they know they won't be getting a free

 

[TheEnsign]

Carlton the only team you can legit bank the four points for pre-match. Every other team is a chance on the day vs just about any opposition.

I reckon Melbourne will still make the finals, finishing 6th-7th but will spend too many tickets doing it and won't see out the first week.

 

[Pessimistic]

Looking at what hocking has said in the press today he has no clue either, apart from maybe a miracle will happen

 

[Sausages]

Anyone wanna help me out on this one?

"call me dumb but I haven't noticed a limited six times three lazy round the ground partition...

if you know what I mean then you know what I mean.. there is still a glut of players overall"

Maybe I can help here Quiv....first, some punctuation.....

'call me dumb, but I haven't noticed a limited, six times three, lazy round the ground partition'

So, I think what being said here is that there's no 6-6-6 in effect at all times - although the word limited is an odd choice.

Which leads to:

'if you know what I mean then you know what I mean.. there is still a glut of players overall'

So, if you ALSO haven't seen the 6-6-6 rule in effect all the time, then congestion still remains in the game.

/shrug

Dunno, could be wrong - I had to read it a few times though, so it's thus open to interpretation.

 

[Tulip]

The lack of easy flooding has made close finishes a lot more exciting, but that's about it.

 

[Dr Awkward]

Everybody is exhausted by years of rule changes. They need to let things settle, the umpiring is terrible (not their fault).

What other sport do you know that constantly changes 5+ rules every year? With very little evidence base, and very little fan-driven demand for rule changing.

The administrators underestimate the history of the game and the fact that the existing rules were developed over 150 years.

 

[D-N-R]

I disagree that umpiring causes congestion. Tactics cause congestion as players are coached to put numbers around the contest.

The solution to this is fast movement of the ball away from the packs, which Hawks developed and Clarkson acolytes have continued.

Disagree also that players have less skill. Players are under enormous pressure around the ball which affects kicking and handballs. Players of yesteryear weren't under as much immediate pressure and often simply threw the ball on the boot to move it forward. Some people here like to pick one of the greats and compare them to a spud from today's game. If you pick like for like, players today would be fitter and have much better skills.

I think games open up a bit after the first quarter or half as players tire out and can't get to the contests as quickly. The change in the number of interchanges has helped this and further cuts might help more.

Also, I see players, especially WCE players, tapping the ball on and doing more risky things to keep the ball moving which is interesting when coaches nowadays are so risk averse.

Perhaps a more stringent HTB interpretation could help simplify the umpiring and open up play by discouraging players taking possession in packs.

The current new rules are doing * all in that regard.

 

[Chinacats]

I think from the perspective of the eye test that not much has changed. There is a 10 second period where there is more space at the centre bounce. The same congestion after the bounce is still there. Defenders are not free to run the ball out and are not zoning off with the + 1 down back so teams are over possessing and are too careful out of defense. This lack of run from players like laird, kade Simpson and the like has effected scoring. So while the rules/ state of game committees thought of ways to free up and open up the game going into the forward zone they lacked the foresight to consider the game coming out of defense. More 1 on 1’s in the forward zone restricts the run out of defense. Also the kick in rule hasn’t freed this up as the zone is just pushed back an extra 10-20m. Interesting times! Collingwood is an interesting team to watch in terms of grappling with these rules changes. Their carefulness and uncontested style out of defense is not what the AFL wanted . Hmmmm

 

[NoobPie]

I think from the perspective of the eye test that not much has changed. There is a 10 second period where there is more space at the centre bounce. The same congestion after the bounce is still there. Defenders are not free to run the ball out and are not zoning off with the + 1 down back so teams are over possessing and are too careful out of defense. This lack of run from players like laird, kade Simpson and the like has effected scoring. So while the rules/ state of game committees thought of ways to free up and open up the game going into the forward zone they lacked the foresight to consider the game coming out of defense. More 1 on 1’s in the forward zone restricts the run out of defense. Also the kick in rule hasn’t freed this up as the zone is just pushed back an extra 10-20m. Interesting times! Collingwood is an interesting team to watch in terms of grappling with these rules changes. Their carefulness and uncontested style out of defense is not what the AFL wanted . Hmmmm

Way off the mark if you think the shift to possession and away from territory of a lot of teams (including Collingwood) is a.result of the rule changes

 

[SunshineBoy]

Can we stage some kind of fan revolt where the members of all the clubs stage a coup and vote Gil and all the suits out? Then we can repeal all the last 10 years of rule changes, go back to simple rules that are easy to umpire and we can go back to watching footy.

Fan boycott , publicised before hand

 

[ShadeyP]

One new rule that can aid scoring is a bonus point for getting to 100 , leave the rest alone and reward attacking mindset .

 

[caspian]

One new rule that can aid scoring is a bonus point for getting to 100 , leave the rest alone and reward attacking mindset .

terrible idea. What's going to happen when the weather's s**t?

 

[ShadeyP]

terrible idea. What's going to happen when the weather's s**t?

i guess people will get wet

 

[caspian]

i guess people will get wet

What I'm getting at is that it'll unfairly penalize teams who have to play in s**t conditions. If it's blowing a gale and pissing down you aren't getting 100 points no matter how well you play.

 

[telsor]

full time umpires need to come in. Shocked they aren't already.

Why do people keep wanting to LOWER the standard of umpiring by doing this?