Discussion General Discussion

Which team wins a final first?

  • Essendon

    Votes: 23 28.4%
  • Tasmania

    Votes: 58 71.6%

  • Total voters
    81

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I'm going to go out on a really long limb and go that if the vast majority of fans "don't understand the rule" and think "it should be" very different that the problem is the rule not the fans or the umpires.

And that vast majority would be absolutely right, the problem isn't the umpires, as someone who also knows the rule I think the umpires do a very good job with the rule and I've never had an issue with the umpiring of the rule, every time I have an issue it is the rule itself.

Will never get it... they talk about congestion and it being a problem, I constantly read/hear this and yet they continue to morph the holding the ball rule in a seeming quest to create congestion. I mean ask yourself this question, how often do you see a player take a mark and that area around him end up incredibly congested as a result? When a player takes a kick-in, is it utterly congested? When a player gets any free kick, does the congestion increase (melee's aside)? No, the players spread from that area as fast as they can.

You have a rule that allows players to throw/drop the ball, you have a rule that genuinely encourages players to do so and then on the flipside that same rule is designed to force the umpires to give them sufficient time to prove that they are in fact trying to drop the ball while more and more players get to the contest, I mean I wonder what creates the congestion...

The worst part is it's not a hard rule to fix at all and away goes a significant amount of the congestion and conjecture that the rule creates.

How easy is this...

1. Did the player take possession and have prior opportunity? - This will always be a grey area in that prior should be defined but for the sake of simplicity, I'm going to go with "did they make a football related move?" (call it shrug, duck, fend, lift the ball above their head, fake a kick, drag it in, etc), if yes, they had prior.

Here we fork depending on whether it's a yes or no but...

2a. NO and still has ball - Blow the whistle swiftly and ball it up.

2b. NO and doesn't have the ball THEN did they kick or handball > YES play on, legal disposal, NO, free kick illegal disposal (no need for this fake "he's trying crap, just protect the ball where no prior exists and it's ball up, don't and you lose the ball).

3a. YES and still has ball - Holding the ball.

3a YES and doesn't have the ball - Same as 2b, if you kicked or handballed, play on, if you didn't free kick against illegal disposal.

That's it, added bonus it also removes the horrible free kicks where the player lays a good tackle, the player drops the ball and then utterly ridiculously gets rewarded with a free kick for holding the man.

That's just me though. I mean the AFL aren't competent enough to see that they can fix their personal least favourite aspect of the modern game in congestion while also greatly reducing the fan/coach/player frustration at what is quite clearly the worst designed rule in the sport. Personally I'd say that's what we call a win-win but it would mean this current commission accepting that they've got it utterly wrong for a decade now and their egos are too sensitive for that.
 
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Open question trigger by the book on the prior page…: Is there a “go to” book about AFL that is considered a must read? Might be an autobiography, a history of the game, etc. Keen to hear thoughts.
 

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Open question trigger by the book on the prior page…: Is there a “go to” book about AFL that is considered a must read? Might be an autobiography, a history of the game, etc. Keen to hear thoughts.
Not a must read, but highly recommend an edition of the Encyclopedia of AFL Footballers by Russell Holmesby & Jim Main.

The most recent edition is the 11th and covers all players that debuted between 1897 and 2017.
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