Coaches now instruct players to close down space, pressure the opposition, restrict ball movement, force mistakes.
As is always the case when the AFL implements rule changes, many within the football community have united to plead to the league to leave the game alone. They are sick of the game’s law makers tinkering, or as they see it, tampering with the game.
Said Collingwood forward Mason Cox: “Any chance we could keep the rules the same for once? He added: “Every year, there are more changes to AFL than any other sport in the world, I feel like.”
Richmond great Matthew Richardson reckons the AFL’s rule changes are more trouble than they’re worth. He tweeted: “If the AFL actually reversed a few rule changes made over the years, the game would open up potentially, let’s try this first.”
Maybe they’re right. Who knows if any new rules will solve the game’s problems? But surely the answer is not to simply do nothing,
Here’s the reality. If the AFL heeds that advice and leaves the game alone, scores will continue to fall.
They have been in obvious decline for years. This year the average score was a mere 75.7 points when normalised to a standard-length game. In 2013 it was 92 points. Back in 2000, it was 103 points per game, which is around where the average had stayed since the late 1970’s.
That was the semi-professional era of the game. Professionalism has brought with it a distinctive low-scoring trend.
Let’s be honest. The days of high-scoring, free-flowing shootouts are gone. But just how low does the average score need to go before this is seen as problem? 60 points? 50? 40? If nothing is done, we may get to a time when, after 100 minutes of football, five goals will win you a game more often than not.
We all know there’s never been less time and space on the footy field which makes scoring harder than ever before. Ross Lyon said so the other week.
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Coaches now instruct their players to play out of position, close down space, pressure the opposition, restrict their ball movement, force mistakes, create a stoppage. Players are able to do this more now than ever because they’re full-time professionals. They’re bigger and stronger, meaning they can close down space quicker and play at a higher intensity. Common sense and a study of human evolution will tell you players will only get physically stronger, not weaker.
Current trends in fully professionalised sports suggest coaches will continue to prioritise defence over attack. Tactics will become more and more refined; structures will become stronger and game plans will become more calculated. You reckon this leads to more scoring? Dream on.
From a commercial point of view, it’s never been more important for the game to be the best possible version of itself.
If scores continue to decline, so too will the overall value of the game. Former Channel 7 boss Tim Worner put it as bluntly as he possibly could when he said: “I want more goals. That’s the most valuable 30 seconds of screen real estate in Australian television, aside from the 30 seconds after an over.” But what happens if the goals disappear?
The game’s vulnerabilities in a global world where young fans are increasingly enamoured with overseas sports and global superstars must also be considered. Australian Rules is not a global sport. Its best players are not even known in every state of Australia,1 let alone on a global stage.
None of that has ever really been a problem for the sport because we love the game, no matter how quaint it may appear on a global stage. Most of us grew up playing the game and that’s where we fell in love with it. It was fun to watch and play. It was creative, attacking and spontaneous. There were goals and high marks.
But is the current game exciting to play? Will defensive structures, guarding space, forcing stoppages and “playing your role” excite the next generation enough to play? Really?
Of course, this is not the first time Australian football has been at this crossroad. If the custodians of the game listened to fans every time they said “leave the game alone”, we wouldn’t have a centre square, players would still be able to kick the ball out of bounds on-the-full with no penalty, and they’d still be able to deliberately “hit the boundary line”. The game is better because these rule changes have been made.
If the AFL was to leave the game alone, it would be doing something it has never done before in the game’s history. Now is not the time the start.
“Common sense and a study of human evolution will tell you players will only get physically stronger, not weaker.”
This is nonsense.
Evolution is concerned with populations, averages. There is no evidence that humans overall are becoming stronger. Neanderthals, an evolutionary close human cousin were much bigger and stronger than your average human. Then look at Gorillas and Chimps, far stronger pound for pound than any human, but nowhere near the stamina. Humans evolved to run all day, not short bursts of strength.
What is happening is better training, nutrition, style of play and fitness, allowing larger people, who’ve always existed to physically perform when they would have been discarded in the past.
You article hinted at the ultimate motivation for the AFL to tinker with the game and increase scoring; commercial interests – the more goals; the more adds; the more revenue; the more from television rights. I know the $$s are important, but the AFL needs to be more transparent with its audience. This is where they have failed. Also, one wonders how does a low scoring game such the English premier league deal with this?