HAWTHORN coach Alastair Clarkson says there is too much focus on protecting the ball carrier and has raised concern over players continuing to be penalised when their opponent forces their tackle high.
Clarkson was referring to a third-quarter incident during Friday night's 138-point win over Carlton where Paul Puopolo was given a free kick after being tackled by Dylan Buckley.
WATCH: The Buckley tackle on Puopolo
Buckley, frustrated over being pinged after Puopolo's actions forced his tackle to slide high, then gave away a 50m penalty for arguing with the umpire.
The Hawks coach said players and coaches were "too smart" and "milking the rules as good as they can".
"We got it right in the 70s. When I was coming through, if you ducked your head and you got hit high and you turned to the umpire and said, 'He hit me in the head', the umpire would turn to you and say, 'You ducked your head'," Clarkson said on 3AW on Saturday.
"It was like, 'Oh yeah, I did too', and you didn't get the free kick.
"You could say the same with shrugging the shoulders, the same with dropping your knees, but these infringements where we're protecting the ball player, we're so s**t frightened now of concussion and getting hit in the head.
"If these are swinging arms and hitting a player directly in the head, penalise them and report them.
"But if they're arms that have accidentally made contact with the head because a player has shrugged, then the umpires should be saying, 'No, you shrugged your shoulders, that's not a free kick'.
Clarkson said he would gladly take the free kick that went the way of Puopolo, but believed way the game was currently being adjudicated was "too skewed to the ball carrier".
He believed the free kick should have actually been awarded to Buckley.
"Buckley laid a fantastic tackle on 'Poppy', and 'Poppy' shrugged his shoulders and it just managed to touch his neck," he said.
"Buckley is that frustrated he's laid a good tackle, he's mouthed off at the umpire and [given away] a 50m penalty.
"I mean, geez.
"In Dylan Buckley's case last night, that should have been a free kick to Buckley; not to Puopolo."
Clarkson also said encouraging the ball to be kept in play was a way to ensure the game was restored to a more attractive spectacle.
He then took aim at how the deliberate out of bounds and deliberate rushed behinds rules were being interpreted.
He believed the policing of the deliberate rushed behinds rule had gone "out the window" since it was cracked down on after the Hawks rushed 11 behinds in the 2008 Grand Final against Geelong.
"If we want to keep the game flowing and we want to actually penalise players for rules that are in the book that we just don't interpret as being deliberate, then we'll continue to have this slow and congested game," he said.
"We had an instance early in the game last night where Ed Curnow got the ball at a stoppage and quite clearly and under pressure and under heat kicked it straight towards the boundary.
"I'm picking out Ed and I'm being a bit harsh because our bloke would do it as well. That is a clear infringement according to the rules of the game but we don't penalise it.
"Keep the ball in play. We've got the rule book … it's [about] the interpretations of the rule book."
