The thing is, the AFL is an easy out for ‘they’re ruining the game’ but 99% of the changes over the last 30 years have come about due to organic evolution. What actually ruined the game was professionalism- flooding (grant Thomas), stoppage strategy (Swans and Roos), zones, rushing strategy. Some of the rule changes implemented have worked well, including no second man up, smaller ruck circle, insufficient attempt, changes to rushed behinds and easier kick outs. Put the rules back to how they were 30 years ago and we’ll be back to 5 and 6 goal games.
Second, for some reason people think the game is going soft. Play happened at about half the pace in the olden days, with way less players around the ball- and there been plenty of brain injury consequences from those times. If the AFL don’t go super hard on it now, they will literally be sued out of existence. I get that it’s a shame they have to go so far, but blame professionalism and anatomy for that.
I agree there’s things wrong with the game, but my point is simply that the old school crowd, who want their game from the 80’s back, are not a consideration for the AFL because it’s not possible and not reasonable. It’s also not commercial, because most people don’t want the game as it looked in 2006 back- it was boring.
