Yep I thought about the VFL. I'd be quite happy to see it trialled there first for a season or two. Senior coaches would get an opportunity to see it in action and work out strategies to cope with the new approach. We'd all be able to see the benefits, and any problems. It would also probably give the second tier competition a bit of a boost as folks tuned in to see the new rules in action.
The downside of using it in the VFL is the overall standard is lower. The conditions and the grounds are worse. As a result, it would be 'uglier' than it would be at AFL level.
The unknown though...is the 'unknown'. We can visualise it, we can run our own scenarios looking at games and how things might go, but they'll come with a bit of bias either way.
Until you run a proper trial, the problems and the tactics used to nullify the rule won't be apparent. And you can almost guarantee there will be unforseen consequences to such a change. I think it's probably a fair guess to assume that initially it may result in more stoppages as players get pinged and both ball-players and tacklers delay and dwell on the contest and contact.
So any trial would require a bit of time before any benefits are realised and it becomes a fixed rule. Not sure how you accomplish that.
You do it by introducing it to the VFL, or U18s comp or something. Give it a couple of seasons before you make a call on it. Initially, there will be some confusion and adjusting. Halfway through the season players will be used to it. By the time finals come round, there will be some new tactics to take advantage of it. You need the off-season to work out new tactics. You need the next season before there is a new kind of normal with tactics and countertactics in place.
Anything shorter than that and you won't get a true indication of it.
Certainly won't get an idea from a couple of practice games which the afl attempted with its previous half-ar$ed trial.
I'm not averse to giving the removing the prior opportunity a go. But I think we need to see it trialled before we make the change to determine how much of a difference it would make. Just for a bit of fun I watched a quarter a few weeks ago and tried to 'umpire' it on the basis of get the ball and if tackled release it virtually immediately in a proper manner...no prior. Of course it may very well have been my interpretation, but I only counted 4 occasions when it would have made a difference...when a free might have been paid. I'm guessing it was probably a lot greater on the weekend I wonder how much difference it would make to the game, but we won't know unless we trial it...with umpires a bit more accomplished than my good self
4 occasions in a quarter. 16 occassions in a match.
....and that'd be conservative numbers.
There was 131 tackles in our last match.
There was 105 ruck contests. 30 of them are from goals and starts of quarter - 75 remaining. Lets say half of them was from throw ins (IMO a lot less, but keep it simple - 37) Thats essentially 37 times there was a ball up as a result of a tackle that wasn't rewarded....but could be as many as 75.
37 times in a match. Removing prior opportunity would remove 37 stoppages from a game. This is conservative estimates too.
Players are taking the ball, knowing they will get tackled straight away and not attempting to dispose of it at all, instead, just waiting for the umpire to get it and throw it up. I saw it at times on the weekend, largely as a smart tactic by our defenders to force the ballup in a dangerous position.
But....take away that tactic, they are forced to either, hit it on, and try and get a disposal out. Either way, play keeps moving instead of having a stoppage. Either way, the chance of a turnover is high. Either way, the chance of a goal resulting is a lot higher than going through a 50-50 stoppage. This is how it will increase scoring as well as speed the game up.
I've done the same exercise with mates who i've explained this too and they all seem to agree that its the way to go. Nobody has come up with any kind of downside to it either. LPs possessions/not possession is his only objection, but the same thing happens now with holding/not holding and will sort itself out pretty quickly as its basically an existing rule that isn't umpired correctly as it is.
The trial that the afl did was a half-ar$ed attempt and was designed to rig the outcome....like the old republic vote in the 90's. It showed nothing because it only kicked into effect on the 2nd handball. So first players to the ball was just hatching it like they do now, and that was ok. If they handballed it to someone who then tried to hatch it, they were penalised......but that occurs in maybe 5% of scenarios, so it was a pointless exercise that 'solved' a problem that didn't exist.
Despite an out of the box low free kick count there wasn't much obvious stuff missed, and I suspect the main complaint will be that all the subtle / borderline frees went GC's direction in the 1st half, but I didn't see any major clangers by the umpires for either side.
I was at the game, and things may have looked different on TV, but i cannot agree with this statement.
Me and 40k of my closest mates seemed to see some very obvious ones being missed. Most of it was based on the holding the ball decisions.....that were not paid.
A lot of the frustration would be taken away, and the decision making of the umpires made easier, if we ditched the prior opportunity rule.
Right now a player takes on a tackler (which gives up his right to prior opportunity) is correctly tackled and doesn't dispose of it correctly, and the umpire doesn't pay anything because they say there was no prior opportunity. So the mistake came when judging if/when a player decided to take on the tackler. Removing prior opportunity removes that decision making error.
There's a similar problem when the ball comes out in the tackle. Is that supposed to be play on? Does the player with the ball get done for incorrect disposal? This seems to change depending on how long the player had the ball for as well......or....if he had prior opportunity. TBH, i'm not sure which way that rule is supposed to go, but thats how its umpired and thats where another grey area is introduced where it shouldn't be.
I keep banging on about it, but removing prior fixes so many of these errors. The main issue seems to be that people don't want to penalise the player making the play.....which is a reasonable stance. However, currently, we do not reward the tackler enough. It NEEDS to be fairer in that regard.
TDK tackles and takes marks and restricts opposition from winning quality clearances. He is Kreuzer on steroids except very durable. You can't play talents like that in other positions other than their preferred and most dynamic,
Implying that he must play #1 ruck because he does that and Pittonet doesn't?
Last week Pittonet had 20 touches and 11 clearances. That was better than TDKs best in both touches and clearances before this week....and is still better in clearances after this week......and this was after having surgery during the week as well.
For all this talk about contested marking between the 2 as well. Pitto averages 0.83 CMs per game this year. TDK averages 0.7 CMs per game this year.
People constantly overlook what Pitto has given us since returning fit this year.
I don't care who takes the #1 ruck role in the side, i just want it to be the best player available.....and i don't think its clear cut.
The problem has never been AI, and the problem has never been technology, the problem is always and will always be human.
They are one and the same though.
Humans create AI. Humans are fallible. Thus AI is fallible. In what way is the issue. The smarter we think we are, the bigger te issues that AI can create.
The folly of rucking BigH by default was exposed in the commentary when Brown started banging on about TDK going solo.
King rightly came in and described why solo rucking TDK is not sustainable season long, then there was a suggestion to ruck Charlie and King nearly fell out of his chair, and he describe why you don't ruck Charlie ever, and the same applies to overuse of BigH in the ruck, the risk is too high relative to the benefit.
The BigH to the ruck is an occasional pinch hit option, not a default tactic.
If our MC aren't smart enough to make use of Pitto and TDK sensibly, as required, we have an MC problem it's not the players.
I'm a bit over the hysteria and dangers of rucking players.
Around the ground, ball ups and throw ins, the rucks are coming at the ball together, starting 1m apart and closing that well before the ball arrives. Risk of injury, basically 0%.
The risk comes at centre bounces. Now we have 1 for every quarter and 1 for every goal. As an example, yesterday we had a total of 30. 15 goals to us, 11 to gold coast, 1 for each quarter. If we only have 1 ruck, they are basically rucking for 80% of the time. So that would mean your #1 ruck is rucking for basically 24 of that 30, meaning your backup ruck is taking 6 centre bounces. Harry is in more marking contests than that where he can get hurt. Perhaps we shouldn't play him as a forward in case he gets hurt too??
For those 6 centre bounces, i'd happily tell him not to jump, but rather line up side on (like wing-side of the circle) and come at the ball side on to eliminate any inury risks.
Now the reality is, that after a goal, or at the start of a quarter, your #1 ruck has plenty of time to make it in for the centre bounce and will attend more than the 80% of the centre bounces, making the risk to backup ruck even smaller.
Add to that the fact that our backup ruck will most likely come up against their backup ruck who also doesn't want to get hurt and will try a similar tactic to what i suggested.
So can we give up the chance of injury from backup rucks please?
Credit to TDK. He put the disaster that was last week behind him and put in one of his best games for us. With a lot of PBs to his name.
First time of over 20 touches, had 25! 15 contested possessions beats his previous best of 14. 10 clearances for the game. Previous best 9. 15 handballs beats his previous best of 11. He also had 9 hitouts to advantage with you can't find bests for, but that would have to be right up there with his best if not his best as well.
That being said, he still had potential to do more. His opponent Witts couldn't keep up with him, so could've become more of a marking target around the ground for us by running off him a bit more.
It has reopened the old debate though. What do you do when you have 2 #1 rucks who don't have a second position. TDK up forward last week was embarrassing. Pitto has definitely played more consistently as the first ruck.
If Pitto is right next week, what do we do? Both deserve #1 ruck. Both don't deserve to be relegated to the 2's. Both in the side is far from ideal.
Some free kick numbers. At 3/4 time it was 4-14 (I screenshotted to a friend) It was then 5-15, 6-16 and then we got the last 5 jn a row to 'even it up' to 11-16....and some of them were definitely not there.
I've never heard the crowd chant "bull-$h!t" so many times in a game. At least 3 times it was loud and clear and directed at the umps. There was also the 'umpire is a wanker' chant that was brought out of retirement too. When you have 40k at the game and a coach talking about the umps you know something needs to be looked at.
Thankfully, we managed to come out of it with a win anyway.
Only 3 teams kick more goals than us. Only 4 teams concede more goals than us.
Sydney kick the most goals and concede the least.
I'm not going down the defending debate as we can save that for another thread. But in terms of attacking numbers.
Why do 3 teams kick more goals than us? We have the best 2 key forwards in the game. They have won the last 3 coleman medals between them. Charlie is =1st currently and Harry is 6th (i think) so they are continuing to do their job.
The fact that somehow 3 teams are still outscoring us is backing up my point. We need to find more avenues to goal. We need to be less predictable. Everygame we have lost has been when those 2 key forwards have had their worst games. Stop Charlie+Harry stop carlton.
.......unless we get smarter and start using other players and.....yep....SPREAD THE LOAD.
The problem with those simplistic analyses is that they don’t take into account goals that aren’t scored by Charlie, Harry or Tom but are the direct result of balls kicked to them, that is, the crumbing and scrambling goals scored after a marking contest.
Not entirely true.
If we target TDK, and Charlie crumbs the ball and kicks a goal. That goes down as goal scored from a TDK target, even though he may have had little bearing on the contest.
As mentioned earlier, its as much about not being outmarked as much as anything.
In fact, Charlie has kicked quite a few goals after crumbing marking contests.
...and that is shown in the stats. It doesn't matter if he marks and goals after he is targetted. It doesn't matter if he doesn't mark but goals. It doesn't even matter if he doesn't mark and someone else kicks a goal. It all goes down as a goal from targetting him.
One thing that has struck me this season is how often we’ve targeted players other than Charlie, Harry and Tom inside 50. Owies with a total of 15 from both inside 50 targeted kicks and opportunistic goals is our third highest goal scorer.
Ahead of all is the cumulative total of 60 goals from kicks targeting Cripps, Cottrell, Kennedy, the Hollands brothers, Martin, Durdin, Fantasia, Hewett, Walsh, Acres, Cerra and Pittonet as well as goals arising from their crumbing and pressure applied to lock the ball inside 50.
We don’t need another forward 50 target. We need a small forward who can make the most balls targeting our key forwards that go to ground and who can force turnovers and stoppages inside our forward 50.
As mentioned, some of those goals are already included. We are not simply counting 'Tony Lockett goals' ("Lead, mark, kick a goal" - thank you music men) We are counting goals from targets regardless of how it happens.
The last point you made, and one i made above, is i'm ignoring the small forwards, but its equally as valid as medium forwards. We need more talent in this area. We need to SPREAD THE LOAD from our 2 key forwards. When we go elsewhere, we are better off. Stats show this.
“ 49 - 43 - 73 - Targets leading to shots on goal (%)”
Is this the % of times these 3 are the target and we get a shot on goal as a result ? If so, I’d read that as no one crumbing Charlie and H ‘cause they don’t drop many but they are roving to TDK because he seems to spill most of his chances ?
Yes....but not necessarily by the player we target.
TDKs could be so high, not necessarily because he takes marks, but because he doesn't get outmarked. Crumbing goals count if/when we target any player Harry and Charlie may get outmarked more as a result which will never lead to a shot on goal.
