The AFL insists it will possibly enhance the on-field product and make the sport safer on the identical time after rubber-stamping guidelines round smothers.
The league has ticked off on a raft of adjustments for the upcoming season following a gathering of the AFL Commission on Monday, held at Collingwood’s AIA Centre.
The lead merchandise was amending the smother rule, first floated in December after Collingwood vice-captain Brayden Maynard’s notorious tribunal case throughout final 12 months’s finals.
After a marathon four-hour listening to, the Magpies defender was not suspended regardless of Melbourne midfielder Angus Brayshaw struggling a season-ending concussion within the smothering incident with Maynard.
The AFL has tweaked the rule so when a participant elects to depart the bottom in an try to smother, any excessive contact with an opponent that’s graded as low impression will likely be deemed to be careless within the pointers.
It comes because the AFL is coping with an ongoing class motion from dozens of former gamers towards the league referring to concussion.
Last week, a minimal 21-day break between a concussion and the resumption of aggressive contact or collision sport was introduced for grassroots sport in Australia.
“We want to make the game safer, we want to make the game better and we’ve seen over the past couple of years an evolution of the on-field product,” AFL soccer boss Laura Kane stated after the adjustments have been introduced on Tuesday.
“The game is as good as it’s ever been. It’s a spectacle. It’s exciting, it’s fast.
“But on the identical time we have remodeled 30 adjustments to the principles and the laws to make it safer.
“So we can do both at once and our responsibility, the cascade effect to community football is most certainly not lost on us.”
Just as she stated final 12 months following Maynard’s tribunal case, Kane reiterated she was not “comfortable with the outcome”.
“We weren’t comfortable with the outcome of the tribunal and the changes today are taking steps to change that,” she added.
The AFL additionally confirmed the sub is right here to remain “for now” however golf equipment will likely be allowed to call 5 gamers on the interchange.
Clubs and coaches have been pissed off final 12 months after they have been pressured to “omit” a participant from the earlier week’s staff as a result of they supposed to make them the sub.
There may even be a change in interpretation to permit straight arm blocks in a ruck contest, supplied the participant nonetheless contests the ball.
The most curious change was a ban on coaches whistling from the interchange bench, saying it “interrupts the audio of match broadcasts”.
“Whistling is not something that I want to see on the sideline,” Kane stated.
“For our umpires, our broadcasters and everyone on the bench, whistling won’t feature as part of our game moving forward.”
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
