Your understanding is, as usual, incorrect. That was added as a rule after it was revealed in the mid-Nineties that Fark Carlton was seriously considering having this as a tactic.
As I previously noted, the AFL acting on that but not thinking of other ways to “be taller” is indicative of the quality of their rule writers (and by that I mean those who write/amend the actual Laws of the Games, rather than the many thought bubblers).
(Not saying it’s easy — I’ve spent much time doing this for boomerang throwing events and it’s very hard to write concise AND thorough — but they’ve left huge holes that you can drive a Scania through.)
The media sometimes call out individual decisions like this as being absurd, or criticise individual issues like the Melbourne tanking investigation etc etc.
However they never seem to recognise that these are not problems in and of themselves - they are simply symptoms of the much larger problem, which you’ve articulated very well above.
The game is being run not poorly, but corruptly. Not corruptly as in favouring certain teams, I mean run in a way as to further the commercial/financial interests of those at AFL House. And it’s been this way for 20+ years now - I see the starting point as being the Fitzroy/North/Brisbane ducks and drakes in the mid 90s.
The clubs and the football populace needs to call this out for what it is and change it ASAP. Otherwise it’s now almost certain that we’ll will pass the point of no return and lose our game forever (if we’re not there already).
The AFL should build structures at the back of each of the goal post starting from the bottom of the fence to about 4 meters up each post, they shall call them RAMPS. This will enable the Defenders up the post without shacking them… No Free Play On…
