SYDNEY Swans coach Paul Roos says he is disappointed withthe direction that football is going, likening the game’s progress to Gaelicfootball.

Roos was speaking after the Swans’ one-point loss toEssendon at the SCG, during which several contentious umpiring decisions andrule interpretations angered the vocal home crowd. 

“Where the laws of the game are heading with the game isthat it will probably resemble the international rules or gaelic football andwe’re just going to have to get used to it,” Roos said.

“It’s not going to be something everyone will enjoy or likebut that’s the reality of what we’re faced. It’s just going to be a changinglandscape in football. We’re seeing it at the start of this year and we’ll seeit. Who knows what other changes to the rules that they’ll make?”

An obviously frustrated Sydney crowd booed Essendon skipper MatthewLloyd as he received the Marn Grook trophy at the end of the clash.

“It’s really disappointing for the game itself… I think thefans really responded… there’s an enormous amount of frustration and I thinkthe 30,000 people who were here tonight showed that… I haven’t heard a crowd inMelbourne react like that, never mind in Sydney,” Roos said.

Roos believes the rule changes are most frustrating foryoung kids starting out and learning how to play the game.

“I was at a kids’ carnival during the week and it’sfiltering down to that level,” he said.

“At the carnival you’ve got frustrated 12-year-old kids,frustrated parents but it’s just the way the AFL wants the game to go so it’sjust a matter of us all getting used to it otherwise we’re all going to betalking about it after every single game.”

Roos fears that the new rules and changing landscape of AFLwill, in turn, mean that some people may cease their involvement due tofrustration.

“We’re not allowed to talk about decisions or umpires. Let’sjust get used to it because that’s what we’re faced with. It’ll happen thisweek, it’ll happen next week, it’ll happen the week after… it’s probably a caseof it we don’t like it, we’ll just have to go and do something else,” he said.

“They’re probably will be some people that will get turnedoff the game. That’s where it’s going.

“I think what it’s affecting is what we remember footballas. I don’t think it affects individual players more than others.

“What we’re seeing now is that it’s going to affect a wholegeneration of footballers, the next young kids that are playing now will becomedifferent players to what we’re actually seeing at the moment. That’s just theway it is.”