The comment was made as Knights was again asked his thoughts on Joel Bowden’s now infamous tactics late in a match.
Speaking at Windy Hill on Tuesday morning, Knights said he believed a stiffer penalty for rushed behinds – such as a greater score or ensuring the ball remained in dispute – could be a way around the same scenario occurring.
Some have suggested a defending team deliberately infringe either further afield or on the player kicking in to give away 50m in a bid to clear the ball from the goal line.
But Knights warned against such a scenario.
“There’s been talk of giving away an intentional free kick [but] I’m not sure whether we want to go that way in our game,” Knights said.
“I’ve watched a fair bit of basketball in the NBA and they do a thing what’s called a Hack-a-Shaq, where late in a game they foul Shaquille O’Neal and put him to the foul line and all that happens is the two teams just walk from one end to the other with not much play going on.
“So I don’t know whether deliberate, off-the-ball incidents is what we’re about.”
Knights, while having no problems with the way Bowden played the final seconds of the match, agreed with suggestions in recent days that made it tougher for the leading team to simply run down the clock by rushing behinds.
“Potentially it [the penalty] could be extra points for rushed behinds or if you rush behinds from a kick-in you go to a ball-up or a bounce down at the top of the square … I’ve got no issue if they wanted to look at rule changes,” Knights said.
“If you’re going to change the rules I would look at extra points for a behind in that situation or it may have to go through another player’s hands before it goes through for a point … a second player would have to have a disposal before it went back through the goals otherwise it would be a bounce down.”
