Match Day Rnd. 2. Western Bulldogs V Sydney Swans. 7.50 pm Etihad Stadium.

[S.S. Bleeder]

That's a good description of what happened. You see the same tactic sometimes with the deliberate OOB. An opposition player probably could get the ball but slows down to let it go over boundary while appealing for the free kick.

It's quite sad what is happening to this once great game. It used to be that the player who went in to get the ball and/or the player that made the play was rewarded. These days it's the player that sits back and waits for his opponent to get ball, or the player that is best at dropping to the knees, or lifting his arm to induct a head high contact that is rewarded. They were even rewarding players who ran head long into their opponents as we saw in the 2012 GF. This terrible umpiring cost us a premiership last year and we will never get that opportunity again. I've never been so disillusioned with the game as I am at the moment.

[jono2707]

Silly me - I'd always thought the 'penalty' for rushing a behind was the awarding of 1 point to the opposition....

[bodgie]

I don't find the Mills decision easy to live with at all. If Picken had made an effort to attack the ball or Mills (old fashioned argument I know) to get a goal on his own merits, then Mills WAS under pressure. Now players have to try and second guess the mindset of their opponents when going for the ball and also guess which way the umpire is going to roll the dice on interpretation. Another poorly conceived rule.

[Boddo]

It's quite sad what is happening to this once great game. It used to be that the player who went in to get the ball and/or the player that made the play was rewarded. These days it's the player that sits back and waits for his opponent to get ball, or the player that is best at dropping to the knees, or lifting his arm to induct a head high contact that is rewarded. They were even rewarding players who ran head long into their opponents as we saw in the 2012 GF. This terrible umpiring cost us a premiership last year and we will never get that opportunity again. I've never been so disillusioned with the game as I am at the moment.

I feel exactly the same with the state of the game. In years gone by I would watch every game but I'm finding that I will miss a lot of games to watch local footy. Perfect example was yesterday I drove 100km to watch a WAFL game instead of watching all the games on Foxtel. I also prefer to go watch the local side train on a Friday than watch a Friday night game unless it's Sydney. It's not a bitch n moan about the result of Friday night it's more they are killing this great game of Aussie rules from the year to year rule changes to a terrible media presentation we have in Australia. FFS we have a nightly AFL show being presented by what appears to be a drunk from a local pub. For a so called professional organisation it looks very unprofessional to me.

[Ludwig]

The umpires have got to allow a lot of dropping the ball, because if they didn't there would hardly be an incentive to try to take possession. There are so many ways a player can get done with HTB and incorrect disposal, as well as intentional out of bounds. So we now simply don't know how a particular situation will be interpreted. It's easy to get an imbalance in the free kick calls, especially with home crowds influencing decisions. I don't know what the solution is, but it's clearly leaving nearly all fans disillusioned with the game. If we win one week due to a unfairly favourable free kick count, we will feel it's justified because we lost other games due to unfair umpiring. And the other side feels they've had a game stolen from them. Maybe the game is becoming too hard to umpire.

[rb4x]

I don't think the Cats would be too happy with the umpires either. At present the Roos are leading the free kick count 18-6 at Etihad. Would it be different if it was in Geelong?

[Mountain Man]

I agree with some that Mills didn't have graet game, but he sure was better than Daniels, who, as I recall, was his runner up in the Rising Star

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great game

[dejavoodoo44]

I don't think the Cats would be too happy with the umpires either. At present the Roos are leading the free kick count 18-6 at Etihad. Would it be different if it was in Geelong?

In my opinion, almost certainly. I've actually been meaning to start a thread on the topic of how umpires are influenced, but at the moment, I haven't quite got the time.

[Goal Sneak]

I understand why the AFL want to try and create a more free-flowing brand of football throughout the league. The Swans have built their game on defence and have been very good at restricting teams to low scores for a long time now.

It makes sense that the AFL would look at what we are doing well in regard to our defence and try to limit the effectiveness of these tactics to try and establish the desired brand.

Is it possible that The AFL are frustrated that the Swans were able to make the Grand Final whilst introducing a bunch of young players (despite unfair restrictions and a chook pen full of ruffled feathers) and still were able to maintain a solid defensive record, the best of the league? I would suggest that this a resounding yes!

It would seem we're being targeted for being too effective.

I don't think that Horse can stomach the thought of directing players to stay off the ball and play for free kicks (and rightly so IMO) Sadly, this seems to be to our detriment.

I don't have a problem with the AFL wanting to establish a more free-flowing, high scoring style of play. It's the lazy and unimaginative way they've gone about it that frustrates me and has lessened my passion for the game on a whole.

[Meg]

I don't find the Mills decision easy to live with at all. If Picken had made an effort to attack the ball or Mills (old fashioned argument I know) to get a goal on his own merits, then Mills WAS under pressure. Now players have to try and second guess the mindset of their opponents when going for the ball and also guess which way the umpire is going to roll the dice on interpretation. Another poorly conceived rule.

Remember why the rushed behind rule was first conceived - after Hawthorn upset Geelong in the 2008 GF in a game in which Geelong's twenty-three behinds included eleven rushed behinds by Hawthorn, many of them clearly deliberate.

Personally I wouldn't want a return to the tactical, deliberate rushed behind being allowed.

[Goal Sneak]

Remember why the rushed behind rule was first conceived - after Hawthorn upset Geelong in the 2008 GF in a game in which Geelong's twenty-three behinds included eleven rushed behinds by Hawthorn, many of them clearly deliberate.

Personally I wouldn't want a return to the tactical, deliberate rushed behind being allowed.

It's not so much the deliberate behind rule that's the problem, it's the determination of what constitutes "real pressure" that leaves too much room for interpretation. More so, the penalty is way too harsh - especially at a late time of the game when scores are close.

[Mel_C]

I was at the Geelong v North game and they were really hot on the HTB rule just like they were on Friday night (well not to the bulldogs!).

One thing I wish the umpires would crack down on is the holding of star players around the ball. It happened over and over again to Kennedy on Friday night and today the same thing happened to Dangerfield. Even worse was when he went to ground and the North player just stayed on top of him and he wasn't allowed to compete in the next contest.


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[liz]

Remember why the rushed behind rule was first conceived - after Hawthorn upset Geelong in the 2008 GF in a game in which Geelong's twenty-three behinds included eleven rushed behinds by Hawthorn, many of them clearly deliberate.

Personally I wouldn't want a return to the tactical, deliberate rushed behind being allowed.

There's a huge difference between the Mills situation and what those Hawks players did. I think the lawmakers have lost sight of why the rule was introduced.

[mcs]

I'm not wagering into your little spat. But this point is valid Joel. It's not like when someone launches in to a "heat of the moment", verbal tirade & the vitriolic words spew forth & can't be taken back.

When you type, you have time to consider what your saying. You even have to take the time to press submit. All conscious decisions that you could sit back & say, "is this what a piolite, rational socially respectful human would do?"

Actually, if you've typed a regrettable post, you have 10 minutes to delete it.

Heat of the moment is a poor excuse for unsavoury posting.

As for abusing the players of the team you support, think about if you made a mistake at work, and then someone jumped on social media abused & berated you for it, all from the secure anonymity of the internet. How would you feel? If the @@@@ abuser is so macho that they say they wouldn't care (as so many keyboard worriors are) what if it was your child, spouse or sibling?

Your not wagering into it - yet you have the time to call me a keyboard warrior.....

I fully accept that person has every right to their opinion if something similar happened to me - because, funny enough, I've had far harsher things than a single swear word sent my direction at work on more than a few occasions. I work in an office for goodness sake in a profession where that is not a normal circumstance - but funnily enough, people get frustrated, because funny enough people have emotions. However, I'm not so thin skinned to jump up and down like some of the PC police on here on the basis of a single post.

If that is now a chargeable offence and some sort of 'consensus' that I did something exceptionally awful, then I may as well give up ever posting on RWO again.

And to top it off - you don't even know what the word behind that @@@@ was........

[mcs]

There's a huge difference between the Mills situation and what those Hawks players did. I think the lawmakers have lost sight of why the rule was introduced.

Completely agree Liz. There is a broader problem with AFL rules though - and that is the move towards making more and more rules reliant on 'subjective' interpretation, rather than trying to make as many rules as objective, so to make the job easier for the umpires, and to remove uncertainty to the interpretation of the rule. I agree with Meg that I think a move back to the deliberate rushed behind tactics shown by the Hawks would be a backwards move, but I think the rule could be improved. That may be to remove the ability to rush a behind at all - for instance making all of them punishable by a bounce at the top of the goal square.