rd...thats all.
3 Both sides flooded back 50 and looked for fast break. Result of stand rule.
4 Further result of stand rule and coach adapting. ..low scoring.
Congratulations idiots at AFL.
5. Further result..high making contests almost gone.
I think what we're seeing is the inevitable logical conclusion of the game's recent shift towards professionalism. It's physics.
Imagine it theoretically with 44 people on an open field. They could be atoms in a balloon. Fish in a barrel. Lions on the savannah.
The task is to work together to get the ball through the sticks at your end of the field.
Logically, what will happen if those 44 entities become, let's say, twice as fit and 20% faster?
They'll cover more ground more quickly, yes?
Okay, but the field is the same size. That means the opposition has less time and less space.
New law: "Running power" and "time and space" have an inverse relationship.
There's more to the equation. Now you've got 2 x coaches coordinating these 44 players who now cover twice as much ground at higher velocities.
Then you add 3-5 full-time assistant coaches to spend 3-5 months working full-time with those players in small groups to get everyone running in effective, synchronous patterns to make it really hard for the opposition to have time or space. Better defence.
And then you get those teammates to spend 5-8 years learning how to cover each other in their system.
And THEN you get to a match today.
What's going to happen? How do you score against that?
Richmond discovered a theoretical way to score in 2017: you need to move the ball faster than the professionally defending opposition can setup their systems, and the best possible time to do this is to prey on the opposition's mistakes, because that's when they're not ready, so then you'll get time and space.
We did it with fast direct kicking, running towards goal, forward handballs, chaos crumbled balls for small forwards at the feet of a pack, running in numbers, play on at all costs, tap the ball forward, be unpredictable (while knowing where your teammate will be)... Richmond footy.
We were the first club to perfectly account for these changes to professionalism in the modern game.
This is where the game will inevitably continue to go based on the amount of coordinated running that is now the new normal, and certainly hasn't yet reached it's maximum limits.
To address the 3 points quoted:
3.) Teams flood back to defend with as many numbers as possible, then win a fast break, and now they have an opportunity to move the ball forward in the absence of opposition defensive systems. That's not a result of the stand rule - it's just a result of full-time professionalism as predicted above.
4.) Scoring is lower because it's easier to defend in the era of full-time coordinated professional runners. That's due to about changes in defence, not attack, and the rule changes have all been a futile attempt to combat these inevitable changes brought on by rising professionalism across the competition.
5.) High marking contests are still there, they're just a lot easier to defend against because the defensive teams are now professional athletes who spend 5-8 years training specifically to organise themselves to cover each other. So, you can't score with this strategy anymore and you never will again, because future defenders will only become more capable of covering more ground more quickly... not less. If you think back to Rance/Grimes/Vlas/Astbury covering for each other in 2017, and then imagine Tony Lockett trying to get a kick against a defensive unit like that, and then everyone else learning how to imitate it... what we're seeing is just the inevitable logical conclusion of defensive professionalism, and it's only going to keep getting harder to score when the opposition is setup.
When teams score a goal these days, I'm especially paying attention to the 2-3 possessions before it. You'll notice a large number of goals these days come from 2 fast, forward possessions before the forward can get the ball. Even when a big, tall forward takes a mark... rewind the tape. It's very often just a chest mark on the lead following the ball moving 80m in under 3 seconds when the opposition isn't ready. They very rarely take big contested marks against a setup defence like people remember seeing in the traditional version of the sport.
Jack Riewoldt is a genius forward and he rarely kicks goals by marking the ball after a slow kick into a big pack. It's an forward handball to a running Trent Cotchin who takes 1 second to keep running forward and then kick in short and low to a smart leading Jack who knows where Trent is looking and when he'll pull the trigger.
It's a permanent change caused by a massive increase in running power and meaningful improvements in club's ability to coordinate that running power. Stand rule is nothing in comparison to that IMO.
