RunningBounce
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Honestly think the scoring in AFLW would go up if they had 18-a-side. The number of times play grinds to a halt because there's no target in front of the ball shits me.
Would 15 or 16 a side work and would you want it?
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RunningBounce
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Instead of changing the rules all the time, just make the grounds bigger.
If this is a genuine strategic need for the game (and I strongly doubt it is), there's a refurbishment of the Gabba coming up, and maybe half a dozen opportunities to have done it since the VFL closed Waverley - which was bigger than the MCG. They didn't take any of those opportunities. Yet kept whinging about the player to grass ratio.
I reckon this is just whingers whinging.
If this is a genuine strategic need for the game (and I strongly doubt it is), there's a refurbishment of the Gabba coming up, and maybe half a dozen opportunities to have done it since the VFL closed Waverley - which was bigger than the MCG. They didn't take any of those opportunities. Yet kept whinging about the player to grass ratio.
I reckon this is just whingers whinging.
Half the game is defence, and it always will be. For some reason every rule change to try improve the game tries to ban defence in some way or another. Why is that?
Why is defence considered inherently boring, and attack considered inherently exciting? That's not the equation at all. Risk taking is exciting, and risk aversion is not. Any rule changes to make the game more exciting should encourage risk, and I think most rule changes have missed the mark on that.
Look at the changes made to kick ins. The theory behind it is that the kick out can go to the widest part of the ground where there is more space. So what does the defending team do? They move everyone back. The ball is more likely to end up inside defensive 50? Let's set up for that. Now they can get it inside 50, but they can't score. Any shots at goal will be under pressure, and then we get the ball back through a kick in. Then the same thing is repeated at the other end. Teams could have set up this way before, but they didn't - and the main reason is that it is very hard to score from kick ins or any sort of deep intercept - the closer to goal you get the ball, the more likely you are to score from the play.
Now what if I take this and flip it completely? New rule change - kick ins change to the way they were in 2018, but for a mark to be paid from the kick in, it must be taken outside 50. Suddenly there is incentive for the defending team to press up the ground, and there is no easy way to avoid the pressure. Either a long kick to outside 50 where there will likely be a contest, or a short kick, but that player doesn't get the freedom of a mark - they can be pressured. A turnover within a kick or two of goal is now much more likely - this is very enticing to a defending team. But the harder they press for that turnover, the less players they have out the back. If the press can be cleared, there will be space to score into. This rule an extreme example, and is far from balanced enough to actually come in. But it is an example of how riskier play can be encouraged with a very easy to umpire rule.
Why is defence considered inherently boring, and attack considered inherently exciting? That's not the equation at all. Risk taking is exciting, and risk aversion is not. Any rule changes to make the game more exciting should encourage risk, and I think most rule changes have missed the mark on that.
Look at the changes made to kick ins. The theory behind it is that the kick out can go to the widest part of the ground where there is more space. So what does the defending team do? They move everyone back. The ball is more likely to end up inside defensive 50? Let's set up for that. Now they can get it inside 50, but they can't score. Any shots at goal will be under pressure, and then we get the ball back through a kick in. Then the same thing is repeated at the other end. Teams could have set up this way before, but they didn't - and the main reason is that it is very hard to score from kick ins or any sort of deep intercept - the closer to goal you get the ball, the more likely you are to score from the play.
Now what if I take this and flip it completely? New rule change - kick ins change to the way they were in 2018, but for a mark to be paid from the kick in, it must be taken outside 50. Suddenly there is incentive for the defending team to press up the ground, and there is no easy way to avoid the pressure. Either a long kick to outside 50 where there will likely be a contest, or a short kick, but that player doesn't get the freedom of a mark - they can be pressured. A turnover within a kick or two of goal is now much more likely - this is very enticing to a defending team. But the harder they press for that turnover, the less players they have out the back. If the press can be cleared, there will be space to score into. This rule an extreme example, and is far from balanced enough to actually come in. But it is an example of how riskier play can be encouraged with a very easy to umpire rule.
RunningBounce
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Thank you for your insight into AFLW coaching.
Changing the subject - do you actually like Aussie Rules? You spend a lot of time on here complaining about it. You could, you know, do things you like instead of obsessing over things you don't like.
Stupid OP. Why not just make a rule nobody can tackle? Scores will be 500 - 470 each game. Or first to touch the ball gets a shot on goal? 1000-980 each game. Would that help?
Nothing is broke about the game. It goes in ebbs and flows. We didn’t blow Geelong and Footscray off the park coz of the stand the mark rule, or 50’s or any other *ed rule the AFL brought in. We did it through pure footy skill.
As it has always been and always will be.
The best team will kick more goals than the rest. The worst team wont. No rule changes will ever make a difference to that
Nothing is broke about the game. It goes in ebbs and flows. We didn’t blow Geelong and Footscray off the park coz of the stand the mark rule, or 50’s or any other *ed rule the AFL brought in. We did it through pure footy skill.
As it has always been and always will be.
The best team will kick more goals than the rest. The worst team wont. No rule changes will ever make a difference to that
Spot on, all rule changes do is change the actual sport. The game was never broken and it was only the AFL itself who decided they wanted to change it. The fans did not see the need for any rule changes at all.
You rank with those wanting to use a round ball, a net for scoring, & hitting it with your head !!
Try Aussie Rules, its a modified version of AFL.
The rules committee looking for rules to change .... then the Hocking/Gil era.
Go back to the formation of the rules committee, start there, dont simply keep fiddling, fiddle fiddle.
You don't need a rules committee in my opinion. The League just gets together once every 10 years to have a look at how things are going. Like I said before it was head office who decided the look of the game was no good, not the fans.
They told the media to tell us to start talking about it. The fans loved the sport 3 decades ago, there was no need for any change.
Interchange needs to be limited, forcing pockets to be used for resting players, not the bench. Hey, fancy that ...
You haven't noticed midfielders resting forward more?
As an Eagles fan, our refusal to leave NicNat up forward instead of resting on the bench gives me the irrits ...
The rotation of midfielders was with us before limitations on interchange:
Interchange (Australian rules football) - Wikipedia
Enough to keep busy a subcommittee of the Rules division at HQ.
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The game would actually be better if you picked a member of each teams cheer squad to be coach as they would implement tactics that are far dumber and as a result there would be a lot more open attacking play.
Mr Cheese
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So what happens if 16 a side is introduced, scoring stays where it is or goes further down? Do you then go, well let's reduce it to 14 a side...
Hocking brought a bunch of rules in with no proper trial periods, and with no thought to the unintended consequences. Throughout all this, scoring continued to drop. We know why the AFL wants higher scores. More goals = more ad revenue.
How about this for a groundbreaking rule change. Just throw the ball up/in quicker. Don't wait for ruckmen and 10 midfielders to get to the ball. If there's no-one there, tough s**t. All of a sudden you won't have tons of congestion around the contest because players will stay out knowing they can't get there.
Scrap stand rule, ruck nomination, 666, long goal square, but allow unlimited interchanges (scoring was highest when interchanges was unlimited in modern times).
Footy at its core is about freedom. Anyone can play anywhere, kick goals, take hangers etc. The Hocking rule change era was focused on restriction. * him.
Hocking brought a bunch of rules in with no proper trial periods, and with no thought to the unintended consequences. Throughout all this, scoring continued to drop. We know why the AFL wants higher scores. More goals = more ad revenue.
How about this for a groundbreaking rule change. Just throw the ball up/in quicker. Don't wait for ruckmen and 10 midfielders to get to the ball. If there's no-one there, tough s**t. All of a sudden you won't have tons of congestion around the contest because players will stay out knowing they can't get there.
Scrap stand rule, ruck nomination, 666, long goal square, but allow unlimited interchanges (scoring was highest when interchanges was unlimited in modern times).
Footy at its core is about freedom. Anyone can play anywhere, kick goals, take hangers etc. The Hocking rule change era was focused on restriction. * him.
I must admit I began thinking of this again because of the most recent episode of AFL Daily on the AFL website where they talked about how low scoring the game has become, a trend that has been happening for the last 20 years in fact and does not seem to be slowing down as teams become more professional and coaches become better at taking away what the opposition need to score. The AFL have introduced rules that have helped slow the decline but that is all it has done, slowed the decline as the rule changes have been too small to have any meaningful difference.
I am reminded of the NBA actually, when a number of decades ago they noticed the trend of scoring was decreasing so they made one big rule change, introducing shot clock rule stating a team had 24 seconds to possess the ball before they had to go for a shot. Now I am not saying the AFL introduce this as it would clearly be terrible for AFL but it was a huge rule change that I am sure upset a lot of purists at the time but ultimately was the right call for the league as it basically fixed the scoring issue forever.
We need a rule change like that in the AFL, something big, something that will fix the scoring issue once and for all and I think that change would be decreasing the current 18 a side to either 16 or even 15 a side, changing the game so instead of 36 players on the field you have 32 players or even 30.
I think this works as right now the problem is not just congestion but also the fact that teams have enough players to set up zones, zones that make getting the ball past them very difficult. Players are more well drilled and fitter than ever so they can maintain these zones the entire match if they want, they don't drop off in the final quarters.
Lowering the amount of players on the field by 2 or 3 per team changes things a lot as it makes a zone so much harder to implement as teams have to cover the same space since the grounds are not getting smaller but they have to do it with fewer players, meaning there are going to be bigger gaps in teams zones, gaps that attacking teams can exploit, and sure coaches will try and rework their defensive structures but there is only so much they can do. There will be more room to move, and when a team is kicking forward they will look up and see fewer players in the forward 50, giving their forwards more room to move and the opposition defenders a more difficult time as they have to be more accountable to their own man since they can't rely on a teammate covering for them.
Also I am not the only one who thinks this as Chris Scott has said in a press conference that Geelong do 16 a side practices and the ball movement and scoring is noticably better with fewer players on the field. He also mentioned this
Scott’s radical plan to fix footy
GEELONG coach Chris Scott believes a reduction in the number of players on the field to 16-per-side would deliver a more attractive brand.www.perthnow.com.au
I strongly think that in the 2022 VFL season they should lower it to 15 a side on the field and experiment with the idea for an entire year in the lower level, see how it goes and possibly look to implement the idea at an AFL level in 2023, assuming it works in the VFL.
So what do you think, would you be willing to consider 15 or 16 a side to improve the game?
2020 scratch matches were like this and made an impression on coaches apparently.
however I’m a big criticiser of the AFL meaning rule changes with no system or review. They really should do that fit]rst
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