When injury-ravaged Richmond sent their VFL side to take on Adelaide in Round 13, the Tigers bounce-passed their way around the nonplussed Crows.
The no-name Tigers so surprised the Crows with their clean feet, little taps to advantage and, noticeably, underground handball, they led by 11 points at the half — it took the Crows time to follow the bouncing ball.
Once they did the hosts pulled away in the second half to win by 33 points.
So Australian football has borrowed something from netball and basketball in its ongoing quest for open space.
The bounce pass is common in netball because of the sport’s confined space. It’s especially common when passing to a goal shooter or goal attack, in the even more confined space of the goal circle.
Bouncing a low pass is an effective means of keeping the ball out of a defender’s reach. Its application in football is similar. Bouncing the ball past an opponent is about making the best use of the available space. And the areas most devoid of space are the strips hugging the boundary — where sides are spending much more time this season.
Modern stadia’s firmer turf helps players pull off an underground handball: good luck finding a true bounce on the rutted cow paddocks of ages past.
Underground handball adds to the spectacle by injecting movement into the game.
Pulling it off takes skill. For a start, to get a true bounce, exponents are going all old-school to tumble their handballs with overspin, rather than imparting the underspin required by the contemporary “rocket handball”.
The very best practitioners can even pull off a Globetrotter-like pass between an opponent’s legs.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/afl/pack-thinking-drives-afl-underground/news-story/1cead537b610ab89cd412360b57af3de
