Here's Tim Lane's view on the rule changes.....
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Enforcing laws might work, I presume
By Tim Lane
The Age
March 4, 2006
AFL rule makers should have the courage to stand by their decisions and stay firm for the good of the game.
AT a recent function, one of Australia's leading cricket umpires said of AFL football: "There's nothing wrong with the rules. The umpires just need to enforce them."
This was an instant to feel a little as Henry Morton Stanley had done upon finding David Livingstone in Africa in 1871. Stanley wrote: "I would have run to him only I was a coward in the presence of such a mob _ would have embraced him only he being an Englishman, I did not know how he would receive me.
"So I did what cowardice and false pride suggested was the best thing - walked del iberately to him, took off my hat, and said: `Dr Livingstone, I presume?"'
There are moments in life when one resists one's natural inclinations. In this case I stro ked my chin thoughtfully and said: "Hmm, interesting observation."
After all, the public sight of a grown man with his arms around a well-known umpire, gratefully weeping things like: "Yes, yes, yes!" could easily be misunderstood. So dignity was maintained, but it felt good to know one wasn't alone.
The AFL has finally acknow ledged that there could be a problem with its game. It has undertaken a statistical analysis of how football has changed over 40 years, and the figures provide a dramatic statement of what we already knew.
They tell us that the game is now much faster, that the umpires are bouncing the ball more often, and awarding fewer free kicks. Anyone with a pie in her hand and two eyes in her head could have told you that, it's the extent to which it has happened that raises eyebrows.
A series of grand finals has been researched. In 1997, there were 172 per cent more field bounces than Frank Schwab executed in 1961. Schwab, how ever, paid 196 per cent more free kicks than were awarded 36 years later. Just to prove it wasn't a one-off, in 1971 Peter Sheales paid 256 per cent more free kicks than were paid in 1997.
That 1997 number is identical to the free-kick count in last year's grand final. That was the game, Mick Malt house said this week, that "was umpired as well as I've seen any umpiring done". Mick probably would have given the umpires 75 per cent, deducting a mark for each free that was actually awarded.
Mick went on to lament that players are now going to be penalised when they hold opponents by the jumper whether they fool them or not. He lamented the passing of the days when you were allowed to do this. He mustn't have watched any games officiated by Schwab or Sheales. Mick is concerned our game is becom ing like netball. Sheales could tell him the 1971 grand final was a lot of things and netball wasn't one of them.
Another figure turned up by the AFL's statistical research is that the pace of the game increased by 86 per cent in those 36 years. While it's not made clear how that figure is calculated, it's an interesting statistic.
A look at track and field records shows that over the same period the men's 100metres world record came down by about 4 per cent and in the 10,000metres the reduction was about 7 per cent. In other words, men are not running so much faster or longer as to explain anything like an 86 per cent increase in the speed of Australian football.
It can have happened only because it has been allowed to by those who administer the laws.
Those laws once preserved a particular type of game that inhibited the speed at which players could approach a con test. It has been altered, and the result is something that is now acknowledged as being so potentially unappealing, and physically demanding, that action needs to be taken.
The solution lies in a frank appraisal of the relationship between the numbers of free kicks and ball-ups. It lies in genuine consideration of where the limits of contact should be set. It lies in ignoring what coaches, who want vindication of their methods, might say.
It also lies in those responsible having the courage to ignore the commentators who complain about "soft" free kicks but not so much about "hard" ones. Of course we do. When a free kick is given, play stops and there's time for discussion and replays.
When no free kick is given, play continues. Therein lies part of the problem.
http://www.realfooty.theage.com.au/realfooty/articles/2006/03/03/1141191854523.html