Favourite rule change.

[Skids]

Every season it's the same old "Leave the game alone", "Why do they keep changing the rules".... blah blah blah, whinge, snivel & groan.

This season it's; the 6:6:6 & the thing with runners that are the big ones.

Well, there's been hundreds and hundreds of rule changes over the life of our great game and I was wondering if you had a favourite rule change, one that you think has been really good for the game?

I have a couple;

1955 - Boundary umpires’ whistles first used in place of white handkerchiefs.

This had quite a few teething problems with boundary umps inflicting quite a few nasty injuries with whistles being flung around until about round 6 when they fully grasped the concept.

1933 - System of determining percentage altered. Points for were divided by points against and multiplied by 100. Previously points against were divided by points for and multiplied by 100.

There were still those nufties of the "% doesn't matter" brigade back in the 30's, this one had them completely bamboozled and kept them relatively quiet.... until one of the great great great grandchildren of a scoreboard attendant from Victoria Park, raised the silly issue again on a fan bulletin board.

[piedys]

The 50M penalty brought in in 1988, to discourage halting the play.
Stops the scragging of player who has taken a mark, or received a free kick.

Imaging if the penalty was still only 15M? The game would grind to a halt.

Always thought the AwFuL could have brought in a 25M penalty for minor infringements, at the maggots discretion.

[David]

While the rules committee has often been an eyeroll-fest, I have to concede that most of the changes this year have actually been good ones:

6-6-6: Good for close games and seems to be working well. I don’t quite understand how the warning system works, but I’m glad that they haven’t policed this too harshly – nobody wants to see heaps of centre square free kicks.

Kick-out: Good for the flow of the game, and removes what was, in hindsight, a pretty annoying technicality (having to kick it to yourself in the square).

Hands in the back: This is probably my favourite one. There was nothing more frustrating than seeing forwards penalised for the slightest body contact. They still get it wrong, as in the game-costing howler against the North defender the other night, but I’m glad that that’s the exception and not the rule.

No free for ducking: again, great – but why did it take so long to implement? Hard to believe that someone like Selwood got away with this for over ten years before the AFL finally made a move.

More space for defensive kicks: No strong opinion, but this is fine.

More lenience for angled shots on goal after the siren: Good in theory, but players still seem confused by it (I think it was a St Kilda player on the weekend who had a kick from the boundary, seemed to follow the umpire’s rigorous instructions but was still judged to have played on).

The real disaster though is the new 50m rule. Here, I can’t disagree more with the post above: 50m has always been too harsh a penalty and too hard to properly enforce, imo. It should be the equivalent of a downfield kick. These changes, unfortunately, have only exacerbated the problem, and the resulting 100m penalties have been a blight on the game.

Also, the removal of runners from the field seems over-the-top and unnecessary given the very few incidents of them impeding play (a pity that it had to happen to us in a grand final!)

Other bad rule changes from the past:

The sub rule: always hated it and was so glad when they got rid of it. Only question was why they had to persevere with it for so long in the first place.

Contact below the knees: nearly impossible to know who will be given the free, if anyone, in these situations. A real crapshoot and something they need to sort out.

The 2006 "in the back" interpretation: less said about this the better.

No wrestling in the ruck: never understood the point of this.

Frees for deliberate rushed behinds: too much of a knee-jerk reaction to what was, admittedly, a pretty annoying tactic in the 2008 grand final. The frees now seem pretty random and costly.

Good rule changes:

Out on the full: hard to believe this only got brought in in 1969! Seems hard to imagine defenders deliberately bombing it into the grandstand before this, as surely must have happened.

Interchange: an excellent idea that has made the game so much better. Strange how "dragging" was once such a dreaded thing (even up until the ‘90s), and now bench rotations are just a regular part of the game.

Removing the head count for 19 men on the field: pretty much never happened, but obviously the penalty (a team’s score being erased) was ludicrous. A free goal was a much more sensible policy.

Recalling bad centre bounces: common sense, really.

Goal review: I get that not everybody loves this, and it has been overused at times, but the principle is a good one and it gets it right far more often than it gets it wrong.

Here’s the full historical list, if anyone’s interested (I think 2017 on is AFLW only)

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:2oZh6SnBBsMJ:https://www.afl.com.au/afl-hq/the-afl-explained/rule-changes-18582013+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au&client=safari

[dalyc]

^ could not disagree more with you on the hands in the back rule. The players had gotten used to it after a couple of years and most contests were fair. Now I just keep seeing clear push in the backs that aren’t getting paid. It infuriates me!

[RudeBoy]

Best rule: out on the full

Worst rule: interchange - it changed the game for the worse, turning it into a game for burst speed running athletes instead of skilled players. If I was running the game I'd get rid of the interchange and replace it with a 19th, 20th and 21st man. Once a player goes off, he stays off.

[Skids]

The most comical......

2012
Goal line technology introduced to assist goal umpiring decisions.

7 years and it's more farcical than ever.

[RudeBoy]

[npalm]

[Presti35]

2019: Holding the ball now in the back.

Defs my fave!

[Mr Miyagi]

My favourite rule change is umpires paying what they want, not what the rules state.