But as I watched highlights of the ’90 grand final I was struck by how few players appeared on the screen at any one time compared to what we have seen recently.
This reinforced my view that footy is better if players are spread more evenly over the field.
Back in the late 1990s there was uproar when the Sydney Swans, under Rodney Eade, started flooding. It wasn’t normal so everyone was up in arms. Now every team does it so nobody takes particular notice.
These days it is normal at every around-the-ground stoppage for half the players to be in the TV screen.
It’s all part of the never-ending evolution of football, driven first by various coaching tactics, and thereafter by rule adjustments to counter any negative impact these tactics may have on the game.
What is certain is that over the last 10-15 years when teams and coaches became full-time, we’ve seen a multitude of changes that have had a huge influence on the way footy is played.
The tactic of increasing interchange rotations to allow players to go flat out, knowing they will come off regularly to have a breather, has changed the game enormously.
There has been many consequences, more players around the contest, more tackling, more handballs and more holding the ball free kicks.
One of the by-products of the modern game and the desire to keep the ball moving among the mass of players chasing it is a stricter interpretation of the ‘holding the ball’ rule.
The number of free kicks paid in this fashion has almost tripled in five years.
As I suggested last week, we must better protect the player taking the initiative by being first to the ball, by having an increased leniency towards having had adequate prior opportunity and additionally only pay a holding-the-ball free kick against him if there has been no incidental in-the-back or high contact by the tackler.
There are simply not enough umpires to effectively adjudicate on illegal contact because of the increasing number of players around the contest.
Only a few years back it was basically the umpire closest to the action watching around 10 players, now it’s more like one umpire trying to check on 20 players and it’s only getting worse as interchange rotations climb and we have more energetic players with the capacity to get to more contests.
The focus on keeping the ball moving is nothing new. It’s been the driving factor in most of the key rule changes in the last 15 years.
In 1994 when they introduced the third umpire it came with a third interchange player.
In 1995 it was one warning only for the full-back kicking in. In 1996 the ‘holding the ball’ interpretation changed to make it that, if a player had had prior opportunity, he must kick or handball immediately when tackled.
In 1998 it was the fourth interchange player. In 2002 the minimum distance the ball must travel for a mark jumped from 10m to 15m, and in ’03 it was ‘play on’ if a player unnecessarily delayed disposal after a mark or free kick. And in ’06 it was the quick kick-in after a behind.
All this has served to make the umpires’ task more difficult.
I think they do a good job under the circumstances. But the fact that there are more players around the ball these days is making it harder. Not only do they have more players to watch, but we often find their view is impaired by the mass of players around the footy.
Maybe it is time to again float my idea that we replace specialist boundary umpires with an extra two field umpires to give us five on-field decision-makers.
This year's pre-season experiment of allowing boundary umpires limited ability to pay free kicks was a step in this direction.
My idea is to have one central umpire patrolling the centre square area, essentially inside the play, and four others outside the play positioned near the boundary, one patrolling each quarter of the ground. They would also perform the out of bounds function in their area.
That way we should have an umpire looking at every contest from three if not four directions.
This is an idea that has been discussed with the umpiring fraternity over the years but there has always been the worry about the extra cost, and the fact that, with nine games in each round from 2012, we’d need 45 top-level senior field umpires each week.
Money should not be an issue. If the AFL can find millions of dollars in the game development budget to poach rugby league players to launch two expansion clubs, surely they can find whatever it takes for something as critical as a more effective umpiring set-up.
The other concern of finding enough good umpires is more of a factor.
But if we’re going to have five umpires instead of three the running workload on each would be significantly reduced. So umpires should be able to keep going into their 40s.
I’m not particularly concerned on what we would do when the ball goes out of bounds under the five-umpire system. Either have the umpire nearest toss it back into play as happens now, or a quick ball-up 20m in-field from where the ball crossed the boundary.
But if we are genuine about attracting and keeping the best decision-makers then I do think we have to make one other key change - do away with the skill requirement of umpires having to bounce the ball and move to ball ups even in the centre circle.
If I was an ex-player considering going into umpiring the requirement of learning to bounce would be a major deterrent, let’s remove that disincentive to increase the pool of potential top level umpires.
The next issue is to get them in position to see what is happening without the need for Superman-like x-ray vision or super human speed.
The five-umpire configuration should definitely get rid of the situation where a pack of players converge on the footy and the closest umpire is seen running a semi circle around the outside trying to get a clear view.
So often the illegal contact to the player with the footy is not seen and the end result is a holding the ball decision against the poor bloke who has the misfortune to get his hands on the ball first.
Under the five-umpire system we should always have two or three umpires looking at the play from two or three different directions, which should enable more effective decision making.
The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL.
