Leave our game alone

AFL urged not to make big changes

AFL: Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge has called for the AFL to “not be too dramatic” with changes to our “pure” game.

Player congestion has been widely regarded as a stain on the 2018 season so far as poor games produce low scores with alarming frequency.

The AFL has responded by forming the “Competition Committee”, which is tasked with making changes to improve the game’s aesthetics.

AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan says the league is open to all possibilities, but Beveridge insists only finetuning, rather than drastic change, is required.

“Obviously there’s some talking points around congestion and scoring at the moment,” Beveridge said yesterday.

“There’s some quite cosmetic changes that we can make by simply balling the ball up a bit quicker, which means that you don’t nominate ruckmen.

“It’s the club’s or the team’s obligation to make sure they only have one up if we want to maintain the ‘one up’ rule.”

The 2016 premiership coach concedes congestion is an unavoidable beast but says that doesn’t mean radical change is the answer.

“There’s things currently in the game through the broadcast and the umpires not moving the game on quick enough that encourage and entice congestion,” he said.

“There’ll always be times where there’s a lot of numbers in certain areas. But I think we make the cosmetic changes and let’s see how it affects us.

“I’m not for some of the remedies that people are discussing because I just think that you can make really simple adjustments and things can change.”

McLachlan is open to testing possible solutions, as evidenced by a secret trial of radical rule changes at Etihad Stadium last Saturday involving Hawthorn players invited onto the venue to complete match simulation and training drills at the league’s request.

He said AFL football operations manager Steve Hocking would leave no stone unturned searching for answers to congestion.

“I think he’s looked at 30-odd different things and he’ll work through that,” McLachlan said yesterday.

“And if it’s zero it’s zero, if it’s 10 it’s 10, if it’s 30 it’s 30.

“I’ll be clearly prosecuting where they land but I know that he’s going to have a very strong set of recommendations.”