Pre-season Practice Matches with stupid rules (aka NAB Challenge) thread

So just learned this starts tonight with Hawks vs Carlton. Had no idea, shows how close (or not) I have been to footy news. Should be good for a laugh if the Hawks come out firing.

Revised rules:

Nine points awarded for goals kicked from outside the 50m arc. This is called a supergoal.

A player awarded a 50m penalty which takes them inside the 50m area can elect either to kick from outside 50 for nine points or kick from inside 50 for six points.

Longer breaks between quarters, if the weather requires.

Interchange: Rounds one and two – eight interchange and unlimited rotations per team (no substitutes). Round three – six interchange and cap of 90 rotations per team (no substitutes).

Time-on/off: Rounds one and two – no time-on/off in first 15 minutes of each quarter unless a goal is scored or there is a major undue delay. The final five minutes of each quarter reverts to normal time-on/off scenarios. Round three – 20 minutes plus normal time-on/off scenarios.

New trials for 2016
The line of the mark: An adjustment to the line of the mark, except when a player takes a mark or receives a free kick within the forward 50, will be trialled.

Protected area: The protected area described in Law 16.1.2 will be modified by increasing the lateral width. The width will be increased from 5m to either 8m or 10m. To determine the final width and facilitate its introduction, the options will be discussed and tested with clubs during the pre-season and the NAB Challenge. It will be 10m for at least the first two weeks of the NAB Challenge.

Dangerous tackles: Dangerous tackling techniques will be further discouraged by a stricter interpretation of free kicks for lifting, slinging, driving or rotating tackles with excessive force.

Deliberate out of bounds: A stricter interpretation of deliberate out of bounds will be applied in 2016, based on a player not showing enough intent to keep the ball in play.

Time-on/off: Rounds one and two – no time-on/off in first 15 minutes of each quarter unless a goal is scored or there is a major undue delay. The final five minutes of each quarter reverts to normal time-on/off scenarios.
Someone is extracting the urine, surely?

Why wouldn’t you just lower the quarter length to X minutes plus time-on, rather than this hodge-podge which will lead to more errors and arbitrary decisions?

Dangerous tackles: Dangerous tackling techniques will be further discouraged by a stricter interpretation of free kicks for lifting, slinging, driving or rotating tackles with excessive force.

So the umpire will now get to decide what is excessive and what isn’t? I am so certain that this will be adjudicated evenly across the teams and that no team will be on the wrong end of those calls.

They should play these matches in Ethiopia. Seriously fark.

Dangerous tackles: Dangerous tackling techniques will be further discouraged by a stricter interpretation of free kicks for lifting, slinging, driving or rotating tackles with excessive force.

how else do you tackle?.. oh you push them in the back. “Excessive force”… for mine as long as the tackle is legal you should be able to use as much force as you like - as long as you don’t endanger the head.

Have they introduced a Multiball rule yet?

What is “adjustment of the line of the mark”?

Every single one of the different rules is stupid.

The one I loathe the most is deliberate out of bounds. It’s a stupid rule at any time and presumes that the umpires are able to read minds. There is no other code in the world that has a similar rule: in every other code there are rules that determine how play is re-started after the ball has got ne out of bounds, and they all depend on objective, observable facts. The “deliberate” rule was one of those designed to “speed up the game” and was followed by many others, the total result of which has been to reduce the game to a series of rolling mauls, punctuated occasionally by an umpire blowing his whistle and awarding a more or less arbitrary free kick, or throwing the ball up and creating another rolling maul.

This broadening of the interpretation means that unless you try positively to keep the ball in, then it’s a free against you if. It happens to go out. So watch for a lot of free kicks, and a lot of turnovers from players kicking into the corridor so that they don’t get pinged for not trying to keep the ball in play.

One of the benefits of Fox Footy is that it’s possible to watch matches from the time before the Rules Committee got the bit between its teeth and see how much more attractive the game was when players were allowed to contest and these ■■■■■■ stupid “interpretations” had never been heard of.

The one improvement has been the elimination of head-high tackles and the punches to the back of the head disguised as “spoils”. Pretty much every other new rule has been a backward step. And although deliberate out of bounds is the most stupid of all, it’s closely followed by “hands in the back”, which means that a player in good position to take a mark gives away a free kick when he puts up his hand to protect himself against the opponent backing into him.

I don’t know why they haven’t brought the throw-ins by five metres like they did in the pre-season a few years ago.

Worked an absolute treat.

Yeah, what the fark is:

The line of the mark: An adjustment to the line of the mark, except when a player takes a mark or receives a free kick within the forward 50, will be trialled.

Anyone?

Yeah, what the fark is:

The line of the mark: An adjustment to the line of the mark, except when a player takes a mark or receives a free kick within the forward 50, will be trialled.

Anyone?

The NAB Challenge will also include a trial of monitoring players on the mark to ensure they don’t creep around to close off the space available to the player with the ball.

Players manning the mark will only be able to move laterally in the trial.

I don’t see how this is even a change in the rule, just umpires suddenly pretending to care about it.

Yeah, what the fark is:

The line of the mark: An adjustment to the line of the mark, except when a player takes a mark or receives a free kick within the forward 50, will be trialled.

Anyone?

The NAB Challenge will also include a trial of monitoring players on the mark to ensure they don’t creep around to close off the space available to the player with the ball.

Players manning the mark will only be able to move laterally in the trial.

I don’t see how this is even a change in the rule, just umpires suddenly pretending to care about it.

■■■■■■ hell, Wim. So what are they saying, that they don’t do this at the moment? WTF?

Yeah, what the fark is:

The line of the mark: An adjustment to the line of the mark, except when a player takes a mark or receives a free kick within the forward 50, will be trialled.

Anyone?

The NAB Challenge will also include a trial of monitoring players on the mark to ensure they don’t creep around to close off the space available to the player with the ball.

Players manning the mark will only be able to move laterally in the trial.

I don’t see how this is even a change in the rule, just umpires suddenly pretending to care about it.

■■■■■■ hell, Wim. So what are they saying, that they don’t do this at the moment? WTF?

It’s only a small description, but that’s what it looks like.
I’d take it further if it were me. Either stand on the mark or get the hell out of the area.
You can move when the umpire calls play on.

Yeah, what the fark is:

The line of the mark: An adjustment to the line of the mark, except when a player takes a mark or receives a free kick within the forward 50, will be trialled.

Anyone?

The NAB Challenge will also include a trial of monitoring players on the mark to ensure they don’t creep around to close off the space available to the player with the ball.

Players manning the mark will only be able to move laterally in the trial.

I don’t see how this is even a change in the rule, just umpires suddenly pretending to care about it.

■■■■■■ hell, Wim. So what are they saying, that they don’t do this at the moment? WTF?

It’s only a small description, but that’s what it looks like.
I’d take it further if it were me. Either stand on the mark or get the hell out of the area.
You can move when the umpire calls play on.

Yeah, I’m with you on that one.

Re manning the mark, simple, just do what they now do in soccer when there is a free kick, spray a white line where the wall needs to stand behind…

Yeah, what the fark is:

The line of the mark: An adjustment to the line of the mark, except when a player takes a mark or receives a free kick within the forward 50, will be trialled.

Anyone?

The NAB Challenge will also include a trial of monitoring players on the mark to ensure they don’t creep around to close off the space available to the player with the ball.

Players manning the mark will only be able to move laterally in the trial.

I don’t see how this is even a change in the rule, just umpires suddenly pretending to care about it.

■■■■■■ hell, Wim. So what are they saying, that they don’t do this at the moment? WTF?

It’s only a small description, but that’s what it looks like.
I’d take it further if it were me. Either stand on the mark or get the hell out of the area.
You can move when the umpire calls play on.

Yeah, I’m with you on that one.

Mind you, if it were up to me and a player was marking the ground half a metre over the mark I’d pay a fifty straight away.

So maybe don’t listen to me.

Looking forward to seeing stacks of 50 metre penalties for people going into the protected zone.

50m penalties are ridiculously advantageous and should be used for running up and decking someone, that’s it.

Yeah, what the fark is:

The line of the mark: An adjustment to the line of the mark, except when a player takes a mark or receives a free kick within the forward 50, will be trialled.

Anyone?

The NAB Challenge will also include a trial of monitoring players on the mark to ensure they don’t creep around to close off the space available to the player with the ball.

Players manning the mark will only be able to move laterally in the trial.

I don’t see how this is even a change in the rule, just umpires suddenly pretending to care about it.

■■■■■■ hell, Wim. So what are they saying, that they don’t do this at the moment? WTF?

It’s only a small description, but that’s what it looks like.
I’d take it further if it were me. Either stand on the mark or get the hell out of the area.
You can move when the umpire calls play on.

Yeah, I’m with you on that one.

Mind you, if it were up to me and a player was marking the ground half a metre over the mark I’d pay a fifty straight away.

So maybe don’t listen to me.

They normally do this. Except for Hawthorn. Hawthorn players are allowed to stand between 1 and 3 metres over the mark, at the umpire’s discretion.

Underway.

First goal of the season kicked by Casboult.