Is a close game always a good game? In my view, not necessarily - though beauty is in the eye of the beholder
Take last Saturday night’s Gold Coast-Melbourne clash, for example, the final minute or so of which was about as thrilling as you could possibly get. The Suns going a goal clear with just 49 seconds of play remaining, but the Demons, incredibly, managing to score twice in that time to pinch the win.
A great highlight, no doubt, but had you the misfortune to watch the preceding four quarters, you might not have stayed awake long enough to see the climax.
As a spectacle, this game was a shocker; full of errors and precious little scoring. Then there was the constant swarm of bodies – too many – clustered around the football, a recurring refrain for a long time now, and present again in the previous evening’s scrappy affair between Sydney and Essendon at the SCG.
More than one-third of the way through the first AFL season after a slew of rule changes (most notably the introduction of the 6-6-6 rule at centre bounces and greater latitude for players kicking in from a behind) how is football looking?
From my observations, and the numbers: even scrappier and lower-scoring than last year. Or the year before that.
About the one thing the AFL can hang its hat on at the moment in terms of the efficacy of the rule changes is closeness of contest, and how much the new rules have to do with that is debatable.
We’ve had 72 games so far this season. There’s been 14 decided by less than 10 points, two more than to the same stage last year, and 31 decided by less than 20 points, six more than at the same time in 2018.
If close games are your No.1 priority, you’d be pleased with that. Personally, I’d be happier with bigger winning margins if it guaranteed a more open, flowing and higher-scoring game. And it seems no matter what we try, those still aren’t happening often enough.
That Gold Coast-Melbourne game came uncomfortably close to fulfilling the old dig from people who aren’t into basketball (not saying I’m one of them, incidentally), that you really only need to watch the last few minutes.
Of course, there’s still great games. And yes, last year’s grand final was a modern epic. But there are still in my view too many AFL games played where much of the play takes place in a sea of congestion, players clustered around the action while the bulk of the ground remains uninhabited. And scoring is still low.
Those are the two areas in which most hoped this year’s rule changes would have their biggest impact. But they haven’t.
Contested football is an at all-time high, the average number of contested possessions per team after eight rounds this season 146.6, the most ever recorded and about 30 more than the figure back in 2007, before the numbers began to climb sharply.
Scoring currently sits at just 80 points per team per game. That’s three points less even than 2018, which was the lowest-scoring season since 1968.
The 6-6-6 rule, theoretically, should have made it easier to score from centre bounces at least. But already coaches, forever obsessed with defensive mechanisms, have worked out how to stop even that. And the numbers to that end are worrying.
In round one, scores from centre bounces were at an average 14.4 points per team. The figure has never approached anything like that since, and in four of the past five rounds has been lower than 10 points.
The increasing of the space around the player kicking the football in from a behind is supposed to encourage more playing on, and more end-to-end football.
But that’s not happening, either. Scores from kick-ins comprised just four per cent of total scores last year. At the moment, that figure is down even further to 2.9 per cent.
It’s as though coaches, recognising what an insignificant source of scoring the kick-in is, have decided there’s simply more important things to focus on. Like turnovers, scoring from which continues to rise.
At the same time, without being able to so easily engineer a spare man in defence with which to launch counter-attack, coaches are more prone to attempt to control possession via safety-first uncontested possession, which often leads to still more yawn-inducing football.
In my view, anyway. And if we knew for sure that the bulk of football fans are more than happy with the way the game is played now, I’d happily fall into line with the majority. But I’m not sure they are.
Watch a good game from, say, the early 1990s and a good game now, and I’m confident most would find the earlier example more aesthetically pleasing.
And surely most of the rule changes we’ve seen over recent times, quicker kick-ins, fewer interchange rotations, and now 6-6-6, are at least an attempt by the game’s administrators to recapture some of the elements on the decline, like players running with the football, like contested marking, like spearheads capable of kicking bags of goals, and like higher team scores.
All of which increasingly leads me to a conclusion being slowly championed by more learned football voices, that if we are serious about restoring those elements, the only way that can happen is by reducing the number of players on the ground per team from 18 to 16.
Radical? By some measures, yes. And it also contradicts the charter drawn up a few years back by which the football brains trust of the AFL abides, and which enshrines the principle of 18 players per side. But that is legislation which can be changed with the stroke of a pen.
And frankly, I think the football public would be more accepting of a reduction in numbers on the ground than the continued introduction of new rules in the seemingly futile attempts to make any sort of tangible difference.
Why would 16-a-side be more likely to work? Because unlike rule changes which coaches have the capacity to conspire against, four fewer players on the field guarantees more space. There will be more room, simple.
And logically, that means more space to execute skills. More one-on-one duels and less double-teaming and zoning off. And surely, more scoring.
I’m old enough to remember the days of the VFA, which from 1959 until 1992 played with 16 per side, dispensing with wingmen. VFA football was tough, but it was also open and very free-scoring. It was great to watch. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the 16-a-side era happened when the competition’s popularity was at its peak.
Yes, football was played in a different manner then, regardless. But who could argue that clogging up play, forcing contest after contest with weight of numbers around the ball, and restricting the space forwards have in which to lead would not be made considerably more difficult with two fewer men per team out there?
I love Australian football however it looks. But more and more, I’m convinced that my yearning for a style of game I consider the AFL’s peak, some 20 or more years ago, isn’t just the sentimental rantings of a middle-aged man, but one who has seen the very best of what our game has to offer, and doesn’t see it nearly often enough anymore.
We’ve tried tinkering with the rules again and again to try to recreate it. It hasn’t worked. And I think it’s time we seriously considered solving the problem of football which is too crowded, simply by removing some of that crowd. It’s not rocket science. And unlike the other attempts at a fix, I think this one would actually work.
Rohan Connolly is one of Australia's foremost sportswriters – a veteran of both broadcast and print media. In the era of sanitised corporate sports media his is a perspective worth exploring. You can read more of Rohan's work at FOOTYOLOGY.
