AFL stays hands-off as new rules evolve

THE AFL will allow its new rules to evolve into a second season as it vows not to tinker with the game leading into 2020.

AFL football operations boss Steve Hocking says there will be no new rule changes despite the league’s desire to lift scoring falling flat last year.

The game was seen to be much more open and the ball movement much improved and yet the average team score in the 2019 home and away season was only 80.4 points.

It was the lowest scoring since 1967 (78.8 points per team) although the rate of scoring declined from the previous year under the new rules.

They included the 6-6-6 starting positions after goals and players allowed to play on out of goal squares.

Players didn’t lose prior opportunity if they grabbed the ball from the ruck and had a bigger exclusion zone around them when they won a 50m penalty.

The league’s rule changes were not specifically designed only to lift scoring but the league would have hoped a flow-on effect would have been stopping the trend of declining scores.

Hocking said the league wanted to analyse the game and allow the new rules to have their effect next year.

The AFL unapologetically rewarded teams who scored well in its fixture last week with the Lions and Western Bulldogs involved in nine prime time fixtures. But while there was greater ball movement under 6-6-6, teams began to fear turnovers so much they kept the ball in hand.

Melbourne will hope to improve its game style after dropping 33.2 points per week from 2019 to 2018, the largest drop in AFL-VFL history.

The Tigers again won a premiership through a unique forward-handballing, highpressure style, twice kicking 100 points in three finals wins.