Sports

Sport Thought: What’s really killing footy

The news that a committee is being formed to give football a facelift is welcome. The many people
complaining of a game thats become unattractive and boring cant all be malcontents.

Those who put their faith in evolution are losing the argument each weekend. Too many games are
providing a sub-standard spectacle. Too many three-hour television programs – delivering games to
lounge-rooms – arent sufficiently engaging to warrant slots of such duration.

The on-field game is being played according to a coach-driven orthodoxy. Unimaginative
administrators have long treated the coaches as the font of wisdom because they put more thought
than anyone else into how the game is played. But on the matter of what football looks like, theyre
not the best source of opinion. Theyre conflicted. Their job is to find a way to win, not to care about
appearances.

The opinion that counts most is that of the spectators – either at the ground or via television –
particularly the neutral ones at any game. The faithful of a participating team will always be
engaged. The neutrals, though, need something worth watching. That comes either via a close game
or, at the least, one that offers a spectacle.

If the modern game is causing the neutrals to waver, it has a problem.

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The current predominant mix of keepings-off and congestion hasnt come about overnight. The
game has been heading inexorably to this point for 15 years. This has either gone unrecognised or
been inconvenient to confront. Whatever, it represents an administrative failure because the visual
decline thats occurred was foreseeable.

Two weeks ago, in an interview that pushed so many newsworthy buttons it caused some important
issues to slip through the cracks, Alastair Clarkson said the games problems dont necessarily
require rule changes or new rules. They simply require the laws of the game to be properly put into
effect.

I agree with this but disagree with what Clarkson means by it. As an active and combative coach, he
sees a tightening of "holding the ball" as the answer. But, in my view, this is whats created the
problem in the first place. The elevation of the tackler has brought about the current blight.

Nice defence, shame about the game's flow.

Photo: Wayne Ludbey

Notwithstanding that balance between offence and defence is crucial, the equation is simple. If
defence is constantly prevailing, games are likely to be congested and low-scoring. If offence is
winning, the games will have direct movement and freer scoring. Fifteen years ago, the balance
began swinging in favour of defence.

Which prompts this observation about the laws of Australian football: they dont provide any
philosophical cue to "reward the tackler". They never have done, and – if rule-makers give it one
minutes consideration – they never will do. The only reward, as such, in the laws is for a mark. All
free kicks are penalties for rule breaches.

Unfortunately, the coaches are fixated on defensive skills and ensuring that these be rewarded. But
what about the games offensive side? This must also be encouraged, which means the ball-player
should be given more opportunity – not less – to exercise his skills.

The umpires, and more particularly those who coach them, are in a position to ensure this happens.
Over the years, though, their relationship with the games controlling body has changed. Once upon
a time they worked separately from the AFL, but this – as with the competitions new judicial
process – is no longer the case. The umpires have thus become exposed to the modern games
flawed conventional orthodoxy. They have just had to accept it.

Some time back, when Id begun writing critically of the lack of protection for the ball player, a well-
known umpire whispered to me before I interviewed him at a special event: "I agree with you, but
we just have to do as were told." Doing "as were told" is the way it is.

A few years later, following another piece Id written, dual grand final umpire Peter Sheales sent a
message of support tinged with despair. His fundamental message was that the game was on the
road to ruin.

At about the same time, I heard another well-respected former umpire say bluntly: "If it continues
the way its going, in 10 years the game will be f—-d." When those memorable words were uttered,
and although I agreed that umpiring had lost its way, I couldnt envisage what the game being f—-d
would actually look like. I can now, though, as its regularly before our eyes.

Here are some offerings for the most important committee ever established by the games elite
football competition:

1. Eliminate interchange rotations. The players will adjust their tempo accordingly. The number
of players per team was established at 18, not a permanently rotating 22. Rotations have
fundamentally changed Australian football for the worse.

2. Pay ALL high contact free kicks. One example: often players with head over the ball are
grasped front-on, from above, around the body. This has become normalised. Yet its
impossible for the tackler to do it without contacting the ball-players head. There are many
other examples.

3. Penalise all pushes from behind whether a sideways roll is performed in a tackle or not. If a tackler comes fast from behind, force is inevitably exerted into the ball-carriers back.

4. Insist on legal handball other than when a genuine attempt is made to dispose by hand.

5. If all else fails, trial 16-a-side. Fewer players would mean more ground to be covered by each
individual so, at some point, players would have to recover away from the play. Positional
play would thus be restored.

6. Make Leigh Matthews chairperson of the new committee.

Of course, its not that easy, but this would be a start. This season, Im barracking for the committee.

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