I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiments expressed in this article. What do you think?
TIME FOR AFL TO TACKLE THIS PROBLEM
BY TIM LANE
Those who argue that Australian football should seek to preserve its unique characteristics must sometimes tear their hair at aspects of the modern game. The apparent elevation of the tackler, to a status at least equal to that of the ball player, has brought elements of the rugby codes to the indigenous game.
Recently, I heard former Carlton great Ken Hands bemoan the legitimisation of game-clogging gang tackling, saying it has diminished his affection for the sport that has been such a part of his life.
Hands is not just some old bloke living in the past. As one of Victoria's four oldest living members of the Australian Football Hall of Fame, he has participated in and watched the highest level of the code over seven decades. He was a great player, captained and coached his club, and captained and coached his state. His views on the game are expressed thoughtfully, not with bitterness or dripping nostalgia. They shouldn't be dismissed lightly.
It is as though the umpires, their coaches and the rule-makers have decided that the culprit within these packs is almost certain to be the player with the ball. The fact that he goes in and gets his hands on it, to actually try and make the play, counts for less than it once did. The whistle blows and we all know what happens next.
Yet frequently, as the ball player puts his head over the Sherrin, he is tackled head-on in a way that cannot, on any reading of the laws, be legal. Just as often, he is tackled with the weight of the tackler on his back. Yet rarely are these methods - which inevitably stop the game - regarded by umpires as illegal. They are more likely to be rewarded. And the packs keep forming.
So, what does The Laws of Australian Football 2009 say? Here's a sample from law 15.4.5: "A player makes prohibited contact with an opposition player if he makes contact with any part of his body with an opposition player above the shoulders (including the top of the shoulders or bump to the head)."
That is as black and white as the controversial 'hands in the back' rule in marking contests. It is as cut and dried as the free kick for arm-chopping. It is as non-negotiable as the 50-metre penalty for holding a player who has taken a mark. But is every incident of high contact penalised? No. In spite of what the laws say, the "high tackle" is adjudicated as though there are circumstances in which it is excusable. The same applies to the 'push in the back' rule which, according to the laws, is also non-discretionary.
A little book called Follow The Game, compiled many years ago by former umpire and rules committee member Bernie Hogan, was a publication that advised on how the laws of Australian football should be interpreted. It was endorsed by the erstwhile National Football League and recommended as a guide by the VFL. The book offered this on the matter of tackling: "If a player with the ball is tackled from behind and at the same time pushed in the back, a free kick should be awarded for 'in the back'. Even if the player fails to dispose of the ball the decision should be 'in the back' not 'holding the ball'." Thus, with perfect succinctness, was stated the game's priority for ball player over tackler. That has changed.
Then there is the question of the onus on the ball player to legally dispose when tackled. Recently I consulted the laws of the game as they stood in the 1980s and discovered various clauses that today would be regarded as heresy. They instructed the umpire to allow play to continue in the event of the following: "A player in the act of kicking or handball is swung off balance and his foot or hand does not connect with the ball", or if he "is bumped and the ball falls from his hands", or he "is knocked on an arm causing him to drop the ball", or "has his arms pinned to his sides causing him to drop the ball", or "is pulled by one arm or is slung causing the ball to fall from his hand".
The dual intention of these clauses, written decades ago with particular intent, was to encourage the ball player and to keep the game in motion. Yet all of them have been overturned in recent years. It seems we now put a higher value on praising the tackler, and diminishing the bloke who tried to make the play but failed, than on letting the game go on. The ball player has been stripped of what were once his entitlements and the tackler has been given rights that have changed football.
The key words are no longer "protect", "encourage" and "ball player", they are simply "prior opportunity". The problem with prior opportunity is that it still requires a subjective judgment and that judgment seems to be forever shifting in a direction that makes life more difficult for the bloke the rules once protected. Accordingly, a game that was once protected by its rules is being changed.
So next time you're going ballistic at the umpires, don't be too hard on Michael Vozzo, Justin Schmitt or even Ray Chamberlain. They are merely the front men who put these new interpretations into effect. It's in the back room, where the faceless men of the umpires' coaching panel and the AFL rules committee reside, that the real decisions are made.
TIME FOR AFL TO TACKLE THIS PROBLEM
BY TIM LANE
Those who argue that Australian football should seek to preserve its unique characteristics must sometimes tear their hair at aspects of the modern game. The apparent elevation of the tackler, to a status at least equal to that of the ball player, has brought elements of the rugby codes to the indigenous game.
Recently, I heard former Carlton great Ken Hands bemoan the legitimisation of game-clogging gang tackling, saying it has diminished his affection for the sport that has been such a part of his life.
Hands is not just some old bloke living in the past. As one of Victoria's four oldest living members of the Australian Football Hall of Fame, he has participated in and watched the highest level of the code over seven decades. He was a great player, captained and coached his club, and captained and coached his state. His views on the game are expressed thoughtfully, not with bitterness or dripping nostalgia. They shouldn't be dismissed lightly.
It is as though the umpires, their coaches and the rule-makers have decided that the culprit within these packs is almost certain to be the player with the ball. The fact that he goes in and gets his hands on it, to actually try and make the play, counts for less than it once did. The whistle blows and we all know what happens next.
Yet frequently, as the ball player puts his head over the Sherrin, he is tackled head-on in a way that cannot, on any reading of the laws, be legal. Just as often, he is tackled with the weight of the tackler on his back. Yet rarely are these methods - which inevitably stop the game - regarded by umpires as illegal. They are more likely to be rewarded. And the packs keep forming.
So, what does The Laws of Australian Football 2009 say? Here's a sample from law 15.4.5: "A player makes prohibited contact with an opposition player if he makes contact with any part of his body with an opposition player above the shoulders (including the top of the shoulders or bump to the head)."
That is as black and white as the controversial 'hands in the back' rule in marking contests. It is as cut and dried as the free kick for arm-chopping. It is as non-negotiable as the 50-metre penalty for holding a player who has taken a mark. But is every incident of high contact penalised? No. In spite of what the laws say, the "high tackle" is adjudicated as though there are circumstances in which it is excusable. The same applies to the 'push in the back' rule which, according to the laws, is also non-discretionary.
A little book called Follow The Game, compiled many years ago by former umpire and rules committee member Bernie Hogan, was a publication that advised on how the laws of Australian football should be interpreted. It was endorsed by the erstwhile National Football League and recommended as a guide by the VFL. The book offered this on the matter of tackling: "If a player with the ball is tackled from behind and at the same time pushed in the back, a free kick should be awarded for 'in the back'. Even if the player fails to dispose of the ball the decision should be 'in the back' not 'holding the ball'." Thus, with perfect succinctness, was stated the game's priority for ball player over tackler. That has changed.
Then there is the question of the onus on the ball player to legally dispose when tackled. Recently I consulted the laws of the game as they stood in the 1980s and discovered various clauses that today would be regarded as heresy. They instructed the umpire to allow play to continue in the event of the following: "A player in the act of kicking or handball is swung off balance and his foot or hand does not connect with the ball", or if he "is bumped and the ball falls from his hands", or he "is knocked on an arm causing him to drop the ball", or "has his arms pinned to his sides causing him to drop the ball", or "is pulled by one arm or is slung causing the ball to fall from his hand".
The dual intention of these clauses, written decades ago with particular intent, was to encourage the ball player and to keep the game in motion. Yet all of them have been overturned in recent years. It seems we now put a higher value on praising the tackler, and diminishing the bloke who tried to make the play but failed, than on letting the game go on. The ball player has been stripped of what were once his entitlements and the tackler has been given rights that have changed football.
The key words are no longer "protect", "encourage" and "ball player", they are simply "prior opportunity". The problem with prior opportunity is that it still requires a subjective judgment and that judgment seems to be forever shifting in a direction that makes life more difficult for the bloke the rules once protected. Accordingly, a game that was once protected by its rules is being changed.
So next time you're going ballistic at the umpires, don't be too hard on Michael Vozzo, Justin Schmitt or even Ray Chamberlain. They are merely the front men who put these new interpretations into effect. It's in the back room, where the faceless men of the umpires' coaching panel and the AFL rules committee reside, that the real decisions are made.
