AFL - Terrible Ideas, Too Many Ideas, No Idea…

We can see the way the game is umpired. As long as the ball keeps moving, throws and other illegal disposals aren’t penalised unless they are SUPER obvious.

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By far and away, the biggest fault with this game is the ‘interpretable’ nature of the ‘rules’ - the lack of consistency that frustrates fans, players and coaches alike. The ‘weight’ placed on certain games, game timing or finals, by umpires. The constant bravado and macho commentators, who train their audiences to believe that camouflaging a misdemeanor, masking a rule-break, covering up intent - is part of what makes a great player.

You want to fix the game? Take out all the farking bullshiit you’ve stuck in it and keep rules simple to adjudicate. Be always consistent regardless of player or game or period - with the penalty of review and subsequent suspension of umpires. Create an umpire academy that works. Spend some of those farking billions of farking msm dollars on equipment that actually farking works you farking morons. Stop with the childish penalties for coaches and players regarding off-field comments on decisions. Make your financial penalties for infringements based on % of pay, instead of tokenism, and stop tryin to farkin run every club yourselves YOU FARKIN WANKERS!

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Not sure of the thrust of the argument, but love the passion.

Here’s a thought.

Diving on the ball was never against the rules and was never the problem.

The bloke lying on the back of the guy who dived on the ball IS against the rules and was actually the problem.

Maybe enforce that.
See how that goes.

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“he isn’t making a genuine attempt, Bruce…he needs to show a genuine attempt…!”

*player clings to the ball while pounding it with the other hand.

what farkin rubbish

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There are a lot of permutations to that.
I’m happy to start with you can’t lie on top of a bloke.
See if he can get it out then.
I reckon, apart from standing tackles, he probably can.

And a third guy in who grabs the player laying the tackle.
Surely he is illegally tackling someone who doesn’t have the farking ball!

And all the so called manly rubbish they let occur, such as constantly delivering little punches to your opponent. It’s illegal, pay the free kick.

And while I’m at it; if you are going to pay deliberate out of bounds, how about you also pay it against the guy who could pick up the ball but doesn’t, and just basically escorts it to the boundary because he knows he then gets a free.

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I’m totally with you on your first two points.
Preach, brother.

But on the last point, I think Seinfeld did it best.

“They were innocent-bystanders. Now, you just think about that term. Innocent. Bystanders. Because that’s exactly what they were. We know they were bystanders, nobody’s disputing that. So how can a bystander be guilty? No such thing. Have you ever heard of a guilty bystander? No, because you cannot be a bystander and be guilty. Bystanders are by definition, innocent. That is the nature of standing. But no, they want to change nature here. They want to create a whole new animal - the guilty bystander. Don’t you let them do it. Only you can stop them.“

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Complicit bystander?

And I want to go all in on that second point.
You want to stop thuggery?
Pay a farking free kick!

If some ■■■■ wants to bump after a free kick, or tackle the transgressor to the ground, or give a cheap shot to the guts, REVERSE THE FARKING DECISION.

See how often players do it then!

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I reckon it would continue until quarter time of the first game.

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Or you play for Essendon…

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I can just hear it now…
“Accessory to Deliberate!”
“Accessory to Deliberate!!”

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There was a marvellous bit of play last night where a Collingwood player hand balled on the full to a player over the boundary.

Never, ever going to be paid, but deliberate as ■■■■.

And while we’re at it, just ■■■■ off the deliberate rule.
We’ve had it for two decades at varying levels of strictness, and it’s always been crap.

And you can fix a lot of it.
How about, if it goes out untouched then it’s a free kick?
Same as from a point kick-out.

Certainly solves Reboot’s issue.

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The last touch rule is beyond horrible.

I’d agree with a player who escorts the ball out of bounds being penalised.

Pay the obvious, as they sometimes do, and I’m happy.

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The AFL could take some lessons from soccer umpires for applying commonsense. Soccer - free kick, player puts the ball close to where it was given. Players and official happy.Spraying the line for a wall is a good change as that was being abused with wall creep. AFL - Umpire wants it to the 0.01 cm in location and .001 degree angle. Even when it’s 60m out. Serious lack of commonsense that frustrates players and the supporters for making the game flow.

And the more rules and the greater the complexity in their interpretation gives a lot more instances for disagreement. Keep it simple and make it about the important stuff.

And finally, players officiating during a game - waving their arms about asking for a free- especially for a crap rules - makes a bad situation even worse.

I suspect one aim of more free flowing, high scoring games is more ads and more revenue for tv networks.

Also, I remember Gil McDipshit saying that aflx would be exciting cos it would contain all the best bits of the game. Aflx proved beyond any doubt that this bloke has nfi.

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The AFail want more free flowing footy and therefore more goals.

Why?

Cause the broadcaster can put more ads in, therefore increasing revenue and raising the value of the product of footy.

And who benefits?

The AFail do and they will all give themselves performance based pay raises.

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Wim is right. They haven’t been clear on what they want and so it’s impossible to judge whether or not their proposed changes will help.

I think less congestion is an aim. I’m not sure any of the proposed changes will do that.

The starting positions changes almost certainly would help with that issue though, depending on how it was implemented.

The other major problem with the game as I see it is the end to end rolling maul, where a team finally breaks out of the congestion at half back / wing but have to go sideways because they have nobody to kick to. I think that’s ugly.

As much as I despise the AFL, and rule changes more generally, I’ve come around to the starting positions idea. I think it would reintroduce the idea of the leading forward, and the open forward 50 contest, and I think that would be thrilling. Taking a certain number of players out of the maul would also reduce congestion.

My idea would be simple. 3 players from each forward team need to be in that teams 50 when there is a stoppage. Practically, that would mean that those players (and their defensive opponents) wouldn’t move too far away from the 50 at any given time. I think that’s a good thing. Imagine a Smith breaking away from a pack on the wing and kicking it to a leading Joe, Fanta and Tippa? That would be exciting, and I’ve missed that

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