Carlton Supporters Club

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 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.

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

If the ball is knocked free in the tackle it is holding the ball if there was prior opportunity and play on if there wasn’t.

Similarly, a player must dispose of the ball immediately when tackled if he had prior opportunity.  If there was no prior opportunity, the player must be given a reasonable time to dispose of the ball.

That’s where the confusion lies; identical tackles can have different outcomes depending on whether there was prior opportunity.

Get rid of prior opportunity, adjudicate every tackle on its merits but don’t disadvantage players who take on the tackler.  Ping them if they don’t make an attempt, but give them a reasonable time to dispose of the ball.

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.