CONTROVERSY and headaches.
That is what Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge insists will occur if the AFL is to introduce positional rule changes ahead of next season.
Consistent patches of low-scoring affairs, highly-congested encounters and scrutinised media attention this season triggered AFL boss Steve Hocking to establish a ‘Competition Committee’, with it primed to receive recommendations from a secondary group focused entirely on the ‘look of the game’.
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But after last weekend produced several free-flowing shootouts attractive to the modern-day fan, including the Bulldogs’ thrilling two-point win over Geelong, Beveridge believes the game does not need tinkering.
“There’s not much wrong with the game at the moment,” Beveridge said on Friday morning.
“The biggest thing that’s wrong with the game are the people looking for things wrong with the game.”
The Bulldogs coach was an onlooker on the final day of the NAB AFL Under 18s Championships at Etihad Stadium on Wednesday, and believes any move closer to zoning, similar to those he observed at the Championships, will result in serious debate.
“(Positional rule changes are) going to cause some controversy,” Beveridge said.
“(On Wednesday) you could clearly hear the umpires yell out ‘density, density’ to the players and then you saw the two forwards and defenders run back inside the forward 50 arc, sometimes on time, sometimes not.
“I was surprised that the umpires were able to focus on it, they’ve got so much on their minds.
“It will create a whole new set of headaches if we go down that track.”
The 2016 premiership coach, who is often outspoken regarding proposed rule changes, said he was opposed to starting positions because of the potential consequential and adverse effect on junior footballers.
“Headaches will reverberate through the pathways, probably from under 13s up to under 18 levels,” Beveridge said.
“The kids in under 9s and 10s, they have their zones and that’s OK to teach kids to play in their areas, but once they get into older age groups where they start to want to play with flow, with adventure and be involved all the time, well then it’s a bit of a different story.
“But even for junior coaches who want to do the best for the code and the pathways, it might be just too much to organise.
“We’ve got to consider all those things and what the flow-on effects might be.”
Beveridge clarified comments he made to Fairfax Media overnight, suggesting starting positions would “ruin” the game at a junior level.
“I wouldn’t say (positional rule changes) would (ruin the game), but they’d definitely change it,” he said.
“The instincts in our game and the 360-degree nature has been such an attractive part of our game over a long period of time.
“That’s why kids play, they love the freedom. Shackling them to different areas of the ground and putting constraints on them, then they’re going to fight against that.
“We want to be really, really clear on what the future might hold if we make these changes and I can’t see how we can be clear.”
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