AFL looks at introducing zones to combat congestion Matt Murnane
The Age
June 3, 2014 The AFL's rules of the game committee is considering the radical idea of restricting players to "zones" as a trial in the next pre-season competition.
Former West Coast coach John Worsfold, now a member of the laws of the game committee, revealed on Monday night that the league was investigating ways to artificially ease congestion around the ball by changing one of the game's fundamental principles, as concerns about its changing aesthetics continue to grow.
Worsfold said on Channel Seven that the AFL was thinking of implementing a rule that would force as many as three players from both teams to remain in either half of the ground at any one time.
The former premiership coach, who has been away from the coaches' box less than a year, admitted he feared for the game as a spectacle, particularly when all 36 players flooded into one half of the ground at stoppages inside 50 - making it hard for attacking sides to find space and discouraging free-flowing ball movement for defensive sides looking to rebound.
"They talk about zones. There are suggestions around players holding their position more," Worsfold said on Talking Footy. "So maybe two or three players from each side always have to be in either half of the ground so they can't all cross over and get into one half."
Worsfold said the rule would be relatively easy to police, suggesting one of the four boundary umpires could remain at the halfway mark and scan an imaginary line (in the same way a soccer linesman would to enforce the "off-side" rule) to ensure players stayed in the vacant half of the ground.
He said a simple free kick would be the penalty for breaking the rule.
"The rules at the moment say the free kick is taken where the best advantage is, either where the ball is, or where the infringement takes place. So it would be at the halfway mark of the ground if that was what the rule was," he said.
Geelong's Chris Scott is one coach who believes it would be in the AFL's best interests to work closely with coaches on any potential rule change, in order to find out how clubs would try to exploit it.
Worsfold said a radical change such as the "zone" proposal he had outlined would require extensive consultation.
"The first thing to do would be to get a lot of input from all of the people on the laws of the game committee about what coaches would do if this was the case," he said.
"How would it possibly be interpreted by clubs, and how would they try and exploit it, because that's what coaches do. They say 'these are the rules, let's get it in our favour more than the opposition if we can find a way'.
"So there would be a lot of discussion around whether we'd ever like to see anything like that in the game. But as we know, the pre-season competition is there to experiment with things, and that may be something that could be looked at."
Worsfold said the major problem with forcing some players to stay in one half of the ground was that the unrestricted movement players enjoyed was one of the game's great and unique qualities.
"We don't ever want to see (a situation) where a player won't lead for the ball because he doesn't want to cross into the zone like we do see in netball or Auskick, where they run to an invisible line and have to pull up," Worsfold said.
"So it's a very far-fetched suggestion at the moment. We're more than likely to sit back and see the game evolve itself."
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http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/afl-looks-at-introducing-zones-to-combat-congestion-20140603-zrvlf.html#ixzz33VO1o6yF
