Can't the ruck forward go up still?

I would have thought that this rule would allow

Max to hover a kick behind the play and JVR

Nominates in the fwd line?

That's not 3rd man up.

Also does a jumping ruck take the CB as

there is no longer any contact?

3 hours ago, DeeSpencer said:

Explain how you determine who the 3rd man is without nominating of having one very confused and bumped over main ruck?

I don't think its that complicated. The rule was brought in to stop a third man up after the rucks had engaged at a ball up. Penalise the third guy.

They managed to work out who the rucks were competing in the contest for decades. No reason they can't do it now. All it will take is a few free kicks before players stop protesting confusion and get on with it.

Shrugging in the tackle will be impossible to adjudicate properly, especially in terms of being consistent

Just another grey area that will be even more grey now

Definition of a shrug? (open to interpretation) There are other ways to deal with the duckers ... including suspensions

No prior at all has been suggested but that creates other obvious problems

A solution for continuous play is to reduce the amount of players on the field ... the grounds are way too small for 36 super-fit players. It's a 19th century way of thinking

Won't happen but 16 a side would fix most of the congestion issues ... but for whatever reason the league seems to be obsessed with 18 a side

Imagine watching soccer if it was 13 a side? It would be a congested mess

Rugby League went to 13 a side in 1908 for a reason. As did the VFA when it went to 16 a side in the early 1950's

Tradition? That went out the window decades ago

Edited 8 hours ago8 hr by Macca

4 hours ago, Mel Bourne said:

I bet the shrug-means-prior rule won’t have you saying “meh” when it costs us a game.

That one is going to be a total schmozzle.

I won't be saying meh, I'll be asking my TV screen very loudly why they tried to shrug the tackle instead of getting rid of the ball.

More likely scenario is I'll be applauding Daicos or Ginnivan getting pinged

4 hours ago, Lord Travis said:

They're nearly all bad rules changes and continue a long line of the AFL changing the rules every year at the detriment of the sport. The average football watcher can no longer watch a match and understand all the rules. They should be removing rules, not further complicating them. My thoughts on the 2026 rule changes below.

Goal square starting position - Will make no difference on matches. We already have 6-6-6 in place, which disarms coaches of strategic options and increases congestion as it essentially forces player to man up and causes clustering. 6-6-6 sucks. This doesn't change or improve that.

Last disposal - This will be an unpopular rule and the average football watcher will not understand how this gets officiated. I can see this going a few different ways. It could encourage teams to play more attacking through the corridor and avoid risk of handing ball over via free kick. The AFL want this and are trying to force this. On the flip side, and IMO more likely, teams will play slower and go more keeping off. Coaches are more about limiting risk than taking risk. I believe this rule will have the opposite effect than intended (as always) for this reason.

Centre ball contests - Removing the bounce removed the unpredictable nature of a bouncing oval ball. Couple it with this rule change and you get the rise of athletic jumping ruckman again. I don't ind this rule change, but would've preferred the bounce remain.

Align kick-in time - Will have no difference on the game other than causing minor confusion with a perceived early play-on call a few times a year.

Ruck nominations - Good rule change in theory, but of course they stuffed it up by adding the "ball must hit the ground before play on called" bit. Ruck nominations are stupid, but if there is no big ruckman at the contest and a player takes it out of the air they are penalised with a free kick. We'll have this scenario where a bunch of players stand there watching the ball just get thrown up and fall to the ground before they can pounce on it. Stupid. Should've just left it as no nomination required.

Shrugging in tackle as prior opportunity - This one is horrific going to ruin matches. Umpires can't even officiate holding the ball, insufficient attempt to dispose etc. Why add another layer to the confusion, and also one that is even harder to see? A player could get tackled immediately, the force of the tackle moves their arm/shoulder, and the umpire sees the movement and deem they tried to shrug and pay a free kick against. This rule change will be discussed every week in the media as it ruins games. They need to simplify, not further complicate, holding the ball.

Stand - Bad change. Being firmer with the stand zone and rule will cause more stupid looking free kicks where the offending player is not impacting the contest at all. They should get rid of the stand rule, not double down on it. It has not aided cleaner ball movement, and as always coaches work to exploit it because it's a bad rule specifically designed to disarm players instead of enforce a smart of fair contest.

This sums it up so we'll.

Just making the game more and more complex.

I feel for umpires and players at all levels of the game.

Another gift to Rugba league and soccer.

Clowns

Edited 10 hours ago10 hr by Brownie

6 hours ago, Mel Bourne said:

Thoughts on these?

Shrugging In The Tackle is going to be a highly controversial (and I predict, poorly adjudicated) one.

The doubling-down of the stand rule is nuts.

I’m ok with ruck nominations being scrapped and somewhat welcoming of the last-touch rule.

I am worried on Jack Viney's behalf - Jack is an expert "shrugger" to get out of tackles....

Don’t wait for the players to get back to position in 6-6-6. If players aren’t where they need to be after a goal, no warnings, PAY A FREE KICK.

Ball ups - just throw the ball in at boundary throw ins and throw it up at stoppages. Essentially as soon as they get it. No ruck nominations at all, just have a rule that only one player from each team can go into the contest. If it’s Gawn vs Caleb Daniel then so be it. If you want a ruck at every contest, then the two best rucks on both teams will have to cover more ground.

Stop putting the onus on the umpires to learn more and more rules/interpretations.

Put it back on the coaches/teams to figure out how to adapt.

5 hours ago, Lord Travis said:

Ruck nominations - ...We'll have this scenario where a bunch of players stand there watching the ball just get thrown up and fall to the ground before they can pounce on it. Stupid. Should've just left it as no nomination required.....

No. Any of the players may nominate themselves without minimum height.

6 hours ago, DeeSpencer said:

Explain how you determine who the 3rd man is without nominating of having one very confused and bumped over main ruck?

The entire 36 players are 3rd-player -up unless they are the first to nominate for their team. Once, the above-mentioned ruckman nominates, he will have the cuurent protection from interference.

3 hours ago, DeeSpencer said:

Imagine this though, round 1 next year, Melbourne vs Collingwood. Throw in deep in the Pies forward line.

Gawn's ready for the throw in. Darcy Cameron is hovering about 5m away, not quite committed to the contest but not out of it either.

Just as the ball is about to be thrown in Dan McStay runs from the side straight towards Gawn. Disco Turner is tracking McStay because that's what defenders do at stoppages. At the same time Darcy Cameron takes a step away from the contest.

McStay's momentum takes both himself and Disco in to the drop of the ball where Gawn is waiting. Disco hasn't actually had any intention to ruck but he's kind of any up there by accident. Umpire penalises him for 3rd man up. Free kick Collingwood. Goal.

Players will exploit any rule they can, so even if it sounds a bit farcical it won't be. And whilst nominations look a bit silly I don't think they're sillier than players effectively playing musical chairs about who goes out for the ruck.

Neither McStay or Cameron have nominated and may not contest or interfere with the ruck. My understanding is that the umpire would as now call out "no collingwood ruck".

Formerly Lever or May would punch the incoming ball OOB. Is that regarded as a disposal?

27 minutes ago, redandbluemakepurple said:

Neither McStay or Cameron have nominated and may not contest or interfere with the ruck. My understanding is that the umpire would as now call out "no collingwood ruck".

My reply was to a comment saying we don't need nominations. There's still a need for nominations to top teams getting creative about who the ruck is and drawing free kicks for 3rd man up or blocking players at stoppages.

3 hours ago, defuture15 said:

Can't the ruck forward go up still?

I would have thought that this rule would allow

Max to hover a kick behind the play and JVR

Nominates in the fwd line?

That's not 3rd man up.

Also does a jumping ruck take the CB as

there is no longer any contact?

Anyone can still nominate, they've worded this change poorly. Really what it's about is giving the umpire freedom to just ball it up if the rucks are too far behind the play.

Rucks will have the freedom to jump, it will help those who do although it's up to each ruck to decide if they wish to risk injury and risk taking themselves out of follow up play by leaping or not. I suspect most of the rucks, most of the time won't bother with too much jumping, the risk isn't worth the reward unless you're Nic Nat.

50 minutes ago, DeeSpencer said:

My reply was to a comment saying we don't need nominations. There's still a need for nominations to top teams getting creative about who the ruck is and drawing free kicks for 3rd man up or blocking players at stoppages.

Ohh!

9 hours ago, jnrmac said:

last touch rule will likely see disputes and reviews

What happens if a player kicks a ball 30m but it is touched by the man on the mark? That all of a sudden becomes a free to the kicking team?

Seems unfair.

Or when players are close to the boundary line and a player with the ball handballs into the legs of an oppo player and the ball goes bounces over the boundary.

Will be a dogs breakfast

For 100 years we had deliberate OOB that worked ok

Ummm, I think there will always be exceptions to a rule and errors. Most of the time a kick with enough force to go thirty metres will do something like deflect or be obvious as it is seen or heard contacting the opponent's arm/ hand. BTW if you've kicked the ball thirty metres without the opponent affecting the kick's trajectory or direction doesnt that mean the k miskicked ball was always gonna end up too close to the boundary line anyway?

I love the way players can deliberately handball it into an opponents legs no differenly to the skills of blind turns, dodges and selling candy (and soccer-style nutmegs). Wheter a skilled player made an opponent kick the ball out this way last year or next Im very happy with such skill and guile.

Edited 7 hours ago7 hr by Go Ds

Because there are so many variables in 100 plus minutes of a match it's hard to know the effect of rules changes until theyre put into practice. They wont all turn out perfect but I'm happy with all these changes. The sport can always be improved and it's not like there's 77 changes or suddenly there's 14 a side. I cant see any of these changes being illogical or changing the fabric of the game. So let's see if they'll make the game slightly better.

5-10 minutes saved per game won't be the difference in helping thousands more fans to tune in.

Those that are watching are watching and those that aren't won't just because of these changes.

Most of these changes seem unnecessarily arbitrary and will only make the overall product worse given umpiring adjudication will be annoyingly inconsistent.

Edited 7 hours ago7 hr by Tom Dyson

I have to say, I love the ruck change.

I think having to rely on wrestling in the ruck is a second rate hack move and I think our ruck stocks will only benefit from the change.

Means that Grundy will actually have to make a play on the ball when we come up against sydney and I think he won't have any idea how to combat Max now.

I’m all for the rule changes. The oob rule is going to really compliment Kings style of attacking play we will be trying to execute

If anyone has watched any sanfl the last touch rule is bloody goods keeps the game flowing instead of the silly throw ins that just have two ruckman wrestling. Leave that for the fwd 50s