The AFL and Rule changes.

Changing the rules ,or changing the goalpsots?

As group, some young ten year old kids,had the insight (back in the late 60;s) to change some rules for their 'backyard' footy games.

Just like in your backyard cricket,caught off the roof with one hand was out. We all had our rules changes for such events.

As a kid we would round up as many as we could, pick teams then head down the road to the local school,and hold a game that usually lasted about an hour.

We didnt have enough for an umpire, on a good day,we could muster up about 20 kids, ranging from 8 to 10 yrs old. The captains usually picked themselves,then took turns in picking from the group. The elite went 1st then the dregs to fill in.

The school footy oval was ideal as it was a bit smaller than your average local football ground, when you dont have enough players, it usually meant more ground to cover,as the 'dregs' were more like statues,then footballers.But numbers was more important than talent.

Pugsly was always full forward (everyone has a pugsly) short, stumpy to fat build,couldnt run to save himself, but was like a boulder to move out of the way. A footballer he wasnt.

He was more likely to have his head in a superman comic,then playing kick to kick in drizzling rain.

Then there was "Stretch", 6 inches taller than anyone else,ran like a 3 legged giraffe,balls skills non existent. he was always full back,he got the job on Pugsly,to try to stop him kicking a bag.

Then the others were handy elsewhere around the ground. The engine room was made up of the junior school football team players,they would cover more ground than Burke and Wills.

One day we hit a snag, an agruement come dispute erupted, Pugsly fluked a mark, and was about to kick from dead in front, when someone said he should be put on an angle,not directly in front of goal

(as a 5 year old, when I went to the footy with my old man (swans supporter,so he didnt have that much of clue, at a Melb game I questioned why one of my players was on the boundary line when he marked the ball in the goal square?

He said it depends on the angle of the kick when it went there.I still was none the wiser)

After 5 mins of to and fro'ing, what did from then on, to prevent any bickering, we would make it a local rule, that it didnt matter,what angle you got the mark or free,you can kick it directly to goal.

None of this lining up the player from the center of the goal posts, If its in the goalsquare or thereabouts you took the kick directly in front.

That would have been great for upcoming games we planned, we now had one sticking point solved, about then 20 minutes in, I broke through the middle,weaved and danced around a few,

All I had to do as sell the dummy to the 'dregs' and I was home free. I looked up, and the goalsquare is vacant, no-one to kick too!! So I hoofed it as hard as I could.

I looked around there's Pugsly and Stretch disappearing into the distance. Seems like when you cant get a kick, interests soon wane ,and a comic book holds more interest.

So with numbers declining we pressed on.

Then there were days when we did the Tony Greig pitch test, (yes I always copped it, coming home with casual shorts, covered in mud, or good jeans with grass stains)

I could have been out breaking into houses, or the like, but nope, it was fun to play a game of footy, but when you are a kid, with big ambitions, some days you cant do anything right.

So after a week of rain, we could use the stomp the foot into the turf test, we werent old enough to carry car keys to test the hardness. If your shoe / boot got covered in mud, it was game off, and kick to kick was the alternative.

I always looked back to the day when we made a sensible descision about making it easy to solve problems lining up kids in the goal square, when finally the AFL Rules committee finally seen the light

and made it a rule if the player is in the goalsqaure kicks from directly in front. Perhaps Pugsly was smarter than I took him for. Did he have a hand it that rule change?

If so we need more Pugslys on the AFL rules committe. Dont change the rules for the sake of it, dont do it to justify a job. Dont do it as a knee jerk reaction.

Soccer, and many other sports dont change rules every year, nor do they do it, on the run.

This flows onto local kids footy, but dad!! we didnt do that last year.

There are far too many gray areas in our game and way far too many rule changes. This is one they got right, only took them 100+ years.

I can think of a heap other rules, that exist, they dont need to add more, just refine, or fix the ones they got wrong.