Has football become almost unwatchable?

[CatToTheFuture]

People forget how much boring footy was rewarded prior to the rule changes.

Geelong is the yardstick you need to check against. 2016 to 2021 we would legitimately field a side with 12 defenders, soak up the entries and the kick sideways at half back before carefully moving up the wing after several minutes.

Now we field 5 HFF players rotating between mid/wing/fwd attack the corridor and they are the most important component of the game plan.

Boring footy got rug pulled

 

[1990crow]

For me the dilution of talent across 18 teams is the problem. And it will only get worse with Tassie and Team 20.

 

[Outtatym]

Just Ross Lyon coached teams.

 

[deck]

We get the odd good game these days, but nothing compares to the golden era from the 70s to the 90s. It was a different game then though, not sure what it really is today?

You only have to look at scores from back then to realise there were a lot of shit games back then to. Fact is you only got about a quarter of the 2 matches of the round on TV.

People live in fantasy land when it comes to everything was better back in the day.

 

[Gethelred]

I would like someone to chart the frequency of variations of the phrase 'footy is unwatchable' in socials and media against the eras in which Ross Lyon is coaching to see if there's any correlation.

 

[OhhhhhCyril]

I watch far less football than I use to.
I enjoy watching quality football sides, I would say that there are only a handful of teams worth watching most weeks. Geelong, Collingwood, Dogs, crows ect; all all pretty exciting and good to watch, but certain teams especially in prime time leave a sour taste in my mouth.. looking you St.kilda

 

[Plugger35]

Why?

He's just salty because his team lost to a team coached by Ross Lyon, apparently he was to blame for Freo kicking just 5 goals.

Generally speaking we have been a more attacking, higher scoring team than we were under Ross Lyon in his first coaching stint.

We only kicked 9 goals last night but we are missing our best tall forward King and our best small forward Higgins was subbed out.

If you take out any team's best tall forward and best small forward it will hamper their ability to score.

 

[JackFlash]

The problem is that we now know so much more about tactics that football from those eras seem amateurish and would be hard to appreciate if you are invested in a team

I was far more invested in the game back then when it was a real game of Australian Rules football. Today's game is just keeping's off "Tactics". The 80s was a fast game of get to the ball first, good kicking, good strong tackling and spectacular marking. They had rules and tactics, but better players who played the game. Most of these blokes who play today wouldn't get a kick in the 80s or 90s.

 

[btdg]

If you step back and take a holistic view, footy has never been better.

The rule changes have meant you can be successful playing a wide range of game styles. You can go all out attack like Adelaide, play Hok ball with lots of small forwards, counter attack like GWS orange tsunami, be a contested inside team like Carlton.

Sadly, you can also still play Ross Lyon football. Put a spare behing the ball, bring everyone else in to the stoppage, turn it into an arm wrestle, hope that the cards fall your way. It isn't pretty, but it'll get you 10 wins each year which is more than the list wins otherwise.

Alongside that, I think the umpiring is pretty good but out of sync with how fans expect games to be umpires. They are umpiring HTB better and more consistently than ever but it does not match fan perceptions. They are way out of sync with what fans want for ruck infringements (basically, don't ever pay this ever again...) and same with marking contests (either pay ALL of the holding free kicks to Curnow/McKay, which would have been approximately 86 in total last night for the match, or pay none of them. Don't only pay the one where a non-defender gets caught on McKay in the goal square but let Howard attack him with a baseball bat on the following possession).

But overall it is great. Anyone who thinks otherwise after watching 10th play 12th n ds to go back to 1995 and watch the equivalent teams that year, or even do the same for 2019 (and watch two sets of scrubs try unsuccessfully to break a forward press for 100 straight minutes)

 

[HavUEvaSeenTheRain]

I was far more invested in the game back then when it was a real game of Australian Rules football. Today's game is just keeping's off "Tactics". The 80s was a fast game of get to the ball first, good kicking, good strong tackling and spectacular marking. They had rules and tactics, but better players who played the game. Most of these blokes who play today wouldn't get a kick in 80s or 90s.

as Sam Mitchell said the other day, the best side Hawthorn have ever had would be their side now because conditioning and tactics have come so far.
It would be nice to have more one on one open play but you can’t have that and play to a high standard. The games tactics have just moved past that.

 

[situationz]

"unwatchable"
"St Kilda"

you just answered your own question

 

[Monsterdarlz]

The skill level is atrocious footy is the only sport that rewards poor skills and constant turnovers. All the grief league gets if a player drops the ball or knocks it fowards it rewards good handling and skills

 

[Stan_Darsh72]

He's just salty because his team lost to a team coached by Ross Lyon, apparently he was to blame for Freo kicking just 5 goals.

Generally speaking we have been a more attacking, higher scoring team than we were under Ross Lyon in his first coaching stint.

We only kicked 9 goals last night but we are missing our best tall forward King and our best small forward Higgins was subbed out.

If you take out any team's best tall forward and best small forward it will hamper their ability to score.

Nah it's all just Lyons fault.

Every club has the fitness to flood back, and every single club floods.

 

[Goggin Our Best]

It would also help if they were more lenient on paying marks. Bring the power forwards and long kicks back into the game.

What mate like Kelvin Templeton back in the 70s when he kicked the 16 goals , some of the marks he was paid in the last qtr he hardly touched - it was farcical !!!

 

[kickazz]

What mate like Kelvin Templeton back in the 70s when he kicked the 16 goals , some of the marks he was paid in the last qtr he hardly touched - it was farcical !!!

Haha yeah we don't want to go to that extreme. I recon people who haven't seen footy from then would be surprised how lenient it was. I even think there was an unwritten "touch/grab it three times = mark" rule.

 

[Art Vandelay_]

So we have more neutral fans criticising Lyon for his boring football in here as well.
But we're all wrong and Saints fans suffering from Stockholm Syndrome are all right. Their master RTB is a visionary.

He's a snake oil salesman selling the promise of success to two clubs that are in desperate need to experience some.

 

[CatToTheFuture]

The Tigers football was quality.

"It's not just the victory, it's the quality of the football "
- Bruce McAvaney during the 2017 GF

Why? Just because you guys were boring doesn't mean other teams were.


You guys didn't play that way that whole time. Chris Scott at some point thought that was the way to beat the Tigers during our run, but later a discontented Steven Hocking figured out that quicker ball movement was the go for Geelong.

You need help

 

[Hoops]

The skill level is atrocious footy is the only sport that rewards poor skills and constant turnovers. All the grief league gets if a player drops the ball or knocks it fowards it rewards good handling and skills

What are you talking about? What league? How does it reward poor skill and constant turnover?

 

[Freomaniac]

Ross Lyon is the worst thing to ever happen to football in all my years watching

I can tolerate almost anything nasty or brutal to be fair.

But that saints vs Freo game on Friday night..... 1st half was brutally bad. Only 34 points scored in the 1st half. 27 points to 7.

The only winners that night was the saints fans and The gamblers that won money lol

 

[Freomaniac]

For me the dilution of talent across 18 teams is the problem. And it will only get worse with Tassie and Team 20.

I don't think it's the dilution of talent because there is 18 teams. We had 15 teams when the crows were in the AFL in 1991.

There was 16 sides from 1995-2010.

I mean look at the crows in the early 1990s. There wasn't a lot of VFL or AFL talent in the crows 1991 squad. Bruce Linder was from west Adelaide and played for Geelong. Tony McGuiness played for Glenelg and Footscray. Bruce Abernathy from Port Magpies and Collingwood and North Melbourne.

Lots of SANFL talent aged 18-22 went straight to the crows from 1991-93.

I think the decline of the 2nd tier that's the SANFL and WAFL and VFL has declined slowly in the 1990s.

I mean eagles have that run of finals from 1990 to 1999 off the back of wise recruitment of local WAFL talent

 

[pico]

I haven't watched a full game in years. The incessant umpire whistles and verbal orders are unbearable. The players are all w***ers and none are true superstars. The commentary is clearly done in a way to appeal to adhd ridden children, creating a horribly overstimulating cacophony. LED lights around the ground. The jumpers are all ruined with (even more) coloured advertisements. It's a visual and audible mess and I'm not sure how adults are able to sit through a whole match on TV, let alone actually attend a match in heart of the city.

I don't even care about the superfluous rule changes that the AFL introduces each year or the so-called boring "state of the game" because the matches are just unwatchable

 

[Mibie]

It's been terrible for years. 05-06 grand finals, flooding, sideways and backward kicking, possession game to half fwd then long kick to the pocket....

The odd ripper like pies v cats are rare indeed

 

[LionsOrDieTrion]

Have we forgotten how bad footy was in 2020-21?

 

[LionsOrDieTrion]

I haven't watched a full game in years. The incessant umpire whistles and verbal orders are unbearable. The players are all w***ers and none are true superstars. The commentary is clearly done in a way to appeal to adhd ridden children, creating a horribly overstimulating cacophony. LED lights around the ground. The jumpers are all ruined with (even more) coloured advertisements. It's a visual and audible mess and I'm not sure how adults are able to sit through a whole match on TV, let alone actually attend a match in heart of the city.

I don't even care about the superfluous rule changes that the AFL introduces each year or the so-called boring "state of the game" because the matches are just unwatchable

Then get off an AFL website and find things you do enjoy

 

[joe444]

I had the chance to drop by the MCG at three quarter time.

Sheesh.

Melbourne's style of footy seems deliberately designed to nullify any strengths (let alone flair) the players have. Add to that a Hawthorn team going through the motions and it was like watching Sheffield Shield cricket.

Geelong played like that in 2021 and it was almost dispiriting even though we won a lot of the time.

Richmond 17-19 provided a glimpse, but sooner or later a team is just going to "go for broke" as a game plan and reinvent things.

Some on here are too young to recall when flooding came into the game. I went to the MCG to watch Essendon play Richmond in 2000. The Tigers flooded (as we all do now) and the booing from the crowd was intense.

Now we just sit on our hands or pretend to be interested in "the switch".