Instead of bowing to public demand and giving Tasmania a licence, the AFL has instead granted that other wish fans are always crying out for – fiddly rule changes that are difficult to adjudicate.
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Players, umpires and fans have nine new rules to get their heads around in 2019 ranging from the sensible (runners banished during live play) to the nightmarishly subjective (the new hands in the back rule).
If rule changes are where the game is headed we want to be part of it, so we’ve put together a few rule change proposals of our own.
COIN TOSS JACKETS
Cricket does this exceptionally well and let’s be honest, the coin toss before a footy game isn’t the spectacle it could be.
With sponsorship from a fashion label, each team captain could get a schmancy new blazer to wear for the coin toss every season - replicas of which could be bought by socialite types (like people who barrack for Melbourne) to show their colours without resorting to wearing a club guernsey over their suit jackets.
LUNCH BREAK
Another golden nugget from the world of cricket, and one that reminds us all that it’s important to refuel.
One of the most underrated parts of AFL culture is opposition players shaking hands and sharing a laugh post-game, and this way we could see them doing it at half time as cameras cut to Daniel Rioli eating ravioli alongside Mason Cox with a zinger box.
RED CARDS
In soccer you can get them for two minor offences, in AFL they should be used for serious stuff like Barry Hall or Andrew Gaff-calibre hits. Or when someone ducks a tackle and gets a free kick, man that’s annoying.
On the other hand, the advent of red cards would surely render Ray Chamberlain an unstoppable force in his quest to become the most prominent figure in the AFL – but then we knew it would happen some day.
CELEBRATIONS
Since ex-Hawthorn sharpshooter Mark Williams was banned from his shotgun routine, showman-like AFL goal celebrations have been rarer than Scott Lucas right-foot punts and it’s high time they were brought back.
Instead of having players run immediately to the interchange bench after a major, wouldn’t it be great to see some kind of individuality - pre-rehearsed or otherwise?
I’m thinking grabbing the footy and running it back to the central umpire while saluting the crowd, a Bryan brothers style chest-bump or an 18-man human pyramid.
BRIAN REHASHED
In the same way that six players now have to be in every third of the ground at centre bounces, one Brian Taylor should have to be outside the winning clubrooms at the end of every game he’s covering.
Instead, he should be chatting with players’ parents and getting the lowdown on whose son is being played out of position and why the coach has no idea – sort of like what you’d get on the boundary fence at an under-12s game.
HERITAGE ROUND
It’s been in remission for about a decade and it’s time to bring it back.
A one-off round to kit up in some old-school guernseys and get a bit nostalgic – what more needs to be said.
BALL KIDS
Half the fun of attending a tennis match is cheering on the ball kids, and it’s something we could use in footy. Footballers love nothing more than to toss the ball into the boundary fence instead of throwing it to the boundary umpire, and this scenario is crying out for a ball boy to act as the middle man in getting the Sherrin back into play.
It’d be a great way to get the next generation of players involved at the highest level, and providing Eden Hazard doesn’t code swap to AFL they’d be perfectly safe.
CADDIES
Golf loves them and we could too.
Had they been around in Matthew Lloyd’s era there would have been no need for him to endlessly toss grass about to measure the wind – he’d already have had ‘17km/h gusts blowing south-west, visibility good’ whispered into his ear.
They’d be the centre of attention during shots for goal after the siren and you couldn’t ask for a better job as a young scientist or meteorologist.
TASMANIAN TEAM
Sorry, I’m being ridiculous now.