Had enough of the hot potato league

[The Gong]

Actually it's occured to my why footy was better back in the day. There was no internet or social media to mercilessly disect every single aspect of the game.

 

[Cold Sober]

I'd like to see a Carey or a Lockett or a GAS or a Dunstell just come out and admit that they would not have kicked as many goals if they were playing today due to improved defensive tactics.

You gotta be taking the piss, Carey would average 10 goals a game running around with todays wannabees.

 

[Cold Sober]

Actually it's occured to my why footy was better back in the day. There was no internet or social media to mercilessly disect every single aspect of the game.

And guess what, it was football played by footballers.

 

[SportsCentre]

I think changing one rule would fix almost everything and that is what Clarkson suggested a year or two ago. If a teammate picks up the ball and handballs it to you then you lose all prior opportunity and the moment you are tackled it is a free kick against. The idea being it encourages teams to move the ball out of packs quickly, rather than doing 10 tiny handballs in the space of a shoebox and creating more congestion.

I think that has some merit, at least enough to trial it.
Kind of like a team prior opportunity ruling.

I've also wondered for a few years if a penalise the 3rd man into a congested ball scenario would help.
1 player from Team A and 1 player from Team B are scrapping for the ball, and the next player in to "hold it in" is penalised.

 

[Hobbes]

Always makes me laugh when I see people ask hypotheticals like who would win out of late 80s Hawthorn or early 2000s Brisbane.

The best teams of the 80s would most likely get destroyed by current day Carlton.

That may be true - the best team today is likely the best team ever. But Hawthorn of the 80s had one thing that modern teams can't duplicate - an absurd depth of talent due to the lack of a salary cap.

 

[OniAu]

 

[raymond35]

Hawthorn of 88-89 would ANNIHILATE current day Carlton

 

[Obeanie1]

You have no issue with the amount of head high contact?

Not when compared to rugby games no.

Thst part of our game has been cleaned uo a fair bit. If we actually applied the rules now evenly so Brownlow medalists dont get away with things mere mortal players dont its fine.

What part of head high concerns you specifically?

The knee to the head in a marking contest is plain crazy but thas been the case since day 1.

 

[Elite Master]

Hawthorn of 88-89 would ANNIHILATE current day Carlton

Not under 2019 match day conditions.

 

[mouncey2franklin]

Hawthorn of 88-89 would ANNIHILATE current day Carlton

Maybe if they were given a few preseasons to learn modern setups.

If it was straight 88-89 into 2019, Carlton would beat them by 100 points.

80s and 90s football was dumb as *, it is amazing to me how long it took VFL / AFL coaches to develop 'modern' strategies.

 

[JayJ20]

I quite like the game the way it is, IMO some people look back on the game with rose colored glasses on. The coverage of the game these days is at saturation point and the media have to write about something and their go to option is always click bait gloom and doom stories.

There were just as many bad games back in the "good old days" as there is now, just that now everyone of them is analysed within an inch of its life.

To me, the good old days isn't the 90s. It was still fairly entertaining back in 2013.

The game slowly deteriorated since with less focus on scoring and more focus on defending at all opportunities. Kicking over 100 points has become a rarity nowadays.

Hawthorn's current style highlights this. They look focused on preventing a score against rather than scoring. It's no wonder they haven't scored above 100 points all year.

In 2013, 12 teams averaged more than 13 goals a game, with Hawthorn averaging 16 goals. Only 3 averaged less than 12 goals. The minor premiers/premiers during that period like Hawthorn, Collingwood and Geelong averaged 17 goals a game.

In 2019, only 3 teams average more than 13 goals a game. A staggering 11 teams average less than 12 goals a game.

Back in the mid to late 2000s, no team would average less than 12 goals unless they were really bad. Scoring is the main issue.

 

[Belnakor]

one thing that kind of sucks is not as many running goals

 

[E Shed]

I think with the elite fitness levels of athletes now the only way to change anything is reduce the number of players on the field at one time and limit interchanges to really small amounts.

 

[Spacedog]

The amount of ball ups is making games unenjoyable. Teams are just repeatedly kicking long down the line and punching it out

 

[raymond35]

Hawthorn of 88-89 with modern day training would beat current Carlton by 170 points.
With them the same as they were in 1988 they would win by about 10 goals.
This myth that crappy current teams would thrash champion teams of the past is one of the more ridiculous and annoying things you read on the internet.

 

[HTT]

Hawthorn of 88-89 would ANNIHILATE current day Carlton

No they would not. No team from 20+ years back would know what to do when confronted with actual defensive tactics.

 

[DonewithAFL]

Back to my OP a little
Doesn’t anyone notice and get frustrated with 36 players swarming in 1/3 or less of the ground at times...
And too many marks paid when barely 10 metres!!

 

[blitzer]

The only consistent with footy is that people are always unhappy about something. There's always someone out there busy telling people that they are going to stop watching footy. Even though anyone that actually devotes enough time to post on here regularly probably won't stop no matter what they say.

I actually don't mind the current game too much. I think the extended square rule was really good even though some teams are still kind of crap at actually utilising it.. 6-6-6 is OK but I think it reflected a fundamental misunderstanding of how higher scores were generated because it made it harder to generate the extra man down back which was actually pivotal for a lot of scoring chains. That being said the rule changes were drastic and I don't think coaches have necessarily found the optimal way to take advantage of the new structures just yet, I predict we'll see some pretty clever strategies in the near future even if the rules stay the same.

 

[BIRDBRAIN]

Yet the grand final last year was one of the best you'll see. I think the first half of every season is always crap, especially with the rules changing every year (early in the season even every week) and coaches being so conservative it takes awhile for the umpires and teams to sort themselves out. By the latter half of the year and the finals everyone seems to be on the same page and we get some decent footy from the good teams that actually have skillful players. The crap teams that don't have the skills to string together decent passages of play and hit targets are absolute rubbish to watch in this modern era. They have no offensive ability so all they do is flood and stoppage their way up the ground. Unfortunately with the leagues expansion we have more crap teams and crap players in the league than ever before. More games has given us TV dollars but more games doesn't mean more good games, it actually means more crap games.

 

[JT_the_Man]

All that needs to happen is fixing interpretations around holding the ball and dropping the ball.

Unless you’re nailed immediately and genuinely have had no prior to get rid of it (if you take more than a step - you’ve had prior. If you turn around - you’ve had prior.) its holding the ball. If you don’t handball or kick the ball correctly, it’s dropping the ball. It’s ridiculous that you can quite literally throw or “knock” the ball out and get away with it.

It’s common sense.