AFL pre-season competition
The Australian Football League stages a pre-season competition named after the sponsor: variously Ansett, Wizard, NAB, etc.
The league uses the competition to experiment with various rules. For the past few years, goals kicked from outside 50 metres have been worth extra and rushed behinds register three points instead of one.
As my brother-in-law noted, they’ve been trying that rule now for so long surely they can decide if they want it or not!
I like the idea of penalising teams for rushing behinds. Football should be an offensive game and there should be no easy escape in the last line of defence.
I don’t see much merit in the so-called super goals. A goal is a goal.
This year there is a silly trial rule of play-on when the football hits the goalpost and bounces back into play. That’s appropriate in rugby and soccer because they don’t have behinds, but not in Australian football where you are awarded one point for missing the goal (six points).
Personally I would have no trouble with abolishing behinds. The goals are the target, so why reward players for missing them?
The AFL is also tinkering with interchanges and umpires. There are four umpires on the field now.
When I started watching football in the 1970s there was no interchange and only one umpire. The reserves were 19th and 20th men who could replace other players irreversibly.
I don’t think the game is any better to watch today than it was 30 years ago.
Similar articles
Tags: AFL, Australian-football, Fitzroy, Sport
Comments
3 Responses to “AFL pre-season competition”
Leave a Reply
Recent comments
- delmer: I downloaded Chrome about 10 minutes ago and am using it now. It seems pretty zippy.
- Emily: I remember learning the meaning of the Greek fish symbol in Greek school. I think it had to do with the the...
- rgeo81: hey there, the other day i was riding my bike to work…i have never in my life been swooped by a...
- Michael: Hello Gerhard, rental accommodation can be difficult to find. If possible, you should travel ahead of your...
- Gerhard: Hello I have the opportunity to be transfer to kalgoorlie from South Africa. Is housing a promlem and do i...
Links
Random posts
Archives
Subscribe
Enter your email address here to receive a weekly email newsletter.Useful stuff
Technically speaking, Michael, the play-on rule after hitting the goalpost, provided the ball bounces back into play, is not a new rule. It was in last pre-season.
As for abolishing behinds, I think it would remove a dimension to our game that is relatively unique. Scoring in increments of six is all good and well, but think of the two Sydney/WCE Grand Finals. Two absolute cliffhangers with less than six points dividing them.
The way they’re going with these pre-season experiments we’ll end up with a crossbar or net.
Yeh, behinds have always been part of the game, so it would be hard to get rid of them.
I can’t agree with no score for hitting the post though. You’d reckon they should be worth more than one point, because it’s not actually an easy thing to do!
I like the idea of keeping points.
I wish they would leave the game alone as they have not done any good with the current changes. The hands in back and limited interchange rules is ruining the game imo.
btw the Pre season cup replaced the night premiership carnivals in 1992 (<a href="http://www.kick2kick.net/afl/history-of-afl-pre-season-competition">more history</a>).
Jermayn Parker’s last blog post..How to kick a Drop Kick