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The AFL insists it might probably enhance the on-field product and make the sport safer on the similar time after rubber-stamping guidelines round smothers.
The league has ticked off on a raft of adjustments for the upcoming season following a gathering of the AFL Fee on Monday, held at Collingwood’s headquarters.
The lead merchandise was amending the smother rule, first floated in December after Collingwood vice-captain Brayden Maynard’s notorious tribunal case throughout final yr’s finals.
After a marathon four-hour listening to, the Magpies defender was not suspended regardless of Melbourne midfielder Angus Brayshaw struggling a season-ending concussion within the smothering incident with Maynard.
The AFL has tweaked the rule so when a participant elects to go away the bottom in an try and smother, any excessive contact with an opponent that’s graded as low affect can be deemed to be careless within the tips.
It comes because the AFL is coping with an ongoing class motion from dozens of former gamers towards the league referring to concussion.
Final week, a minimal 21-day break between a concussion and the resumption of aggressive contact or collision sport was introduced for grassroots sport in Australia.
“We wish to make the sport safer, we wish to make the sport higher and we have seen over the previous couple of years an evolution of the on-field product,” AFL soccer boss Laura Kane mentioned after the adjustments have been introduced on Tuesday.
“The sport is pretty much as good because it’s ever been. It is a spectacle. It is thrilling, it is quick.
“However on the similar time we have remodeled 30 adjustments to the foundations and the laws to make it safer.
“So we will do each directly and our accountability, the cascade impact to neighborhood soccer is most actually not misplaced on us.”
Simply as she mentioned final yr following Maynard’s tribunal case, Kane reiterated she was not “snug with the end result”.
“We weren’t snug with the end result of the tribunal and the adjustments immediately are taking steps to vary that,” she added.
The AFL additionally confirmed the sub is right here to remain “for now” however golf equipment can be allowed to call 5 gamers on the interchange.
Golf equipment and coaches have been pissed off final yr after they have been pressured to “omit” a participant from the earlier week’s crew as a result of they meant to make them the sub.
There will even be a change in interpretation to permit straight arm blocks in a ruck contest, offered the participant nonetheless contests the ball.
Nevertheless, the league will amend the rules over run-down tackles, saying there could also be some examples of tackles which are harmful and represent a reportable offence.
They will even strengthen the rules over hanging, to make gamers take higher accountability for fend-offs that lead to a strike on an opponent.
Essentially the most curious change was a ban on coaches whistling from the interchange bench, saying it “interrupts the audio of match broadcasts”.
“Whistling isn’t one thing that I wish to see on the sideline,” Kane mentioned.
“For our umpires, our broadcasters and everybody on the bench, whistling will not function as a part of our sport transferring ahead.”
AAP/ABC
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