Roos' pre emptive strike on new rule interpretations.

Paul Roos is a smart man. He was a smart footballer and he is a smart coach. The AFL, on the other hand, is not so smart. It is obsessed with changing the game’s rules. Every year it introduces new rules in the pre season competition. It changes umpire interpretations for the official season and these interpretations are re interpreted as the season goes on. For the first rounds of the year the game is in complete disarray. Angry coaches and players are muted by the AFL dictatorship. Umpires, who like players have honed their instincts over years of practice, now second-guess their decisions because of new interpretations forced upon them. And the media lament the destruction of our game. And implicit in every negative comment about the state of today’s game is the view that the game was better before.

One new interpretation for this year regards the ‘push in the back’ rule. (Thank god they have left holding the ball alone for once.) There will be a stricter interpretation of players touching the back of an opponent in a marking contest. Paul Roos knows that in the opening weeks of the season he will be forbidden from attacking the umpires (and the AFL) for their new rule interpretation, so he has launched a pre emptive strike now, and in doing so he has pointed out some of the reasons for the AFL’s obsession with changing the game.

"Why do we always look back to the past in order to change our game?" Roos asked in The Age. It’s a good question. The AFL would insist that its constant efforts to speed up the game are evidence of it looking forward. But perhaps the people who drive opinion in the media are obsessed with a nostlagic idea of a game that never really existed, and they are the ones always looking back. Perhaps the AFL is simply obsessed with change and wants to perfect a game that is brilliant because it is far from perfect. Whatever the reason, the league cannot resist tinkering with rules early in the season, before everything goes back to normal.

It is natural for older footy fans to romanticise the past, especially when that past contained all in brawls, bags from full forwards and long kicks to the forward line for hangers. And so many of the tabloid critics offer stinging criticism of today’s game plans without real solutions, apart from ‘kicking it long’.

Roos, for his part, might know that many new AFL rules are aimed at eliminating the supposedly negative (and frustratingly successful) game plan that his Swans have perfected. And galvanizing the public, coaches and players against the AFL might serve his club’s cause. He has certainly got on the front foot early, and when the world goes crazy in round three because the umpires are a disgrace he can happily sit back and say I told you so. The rule changes will be modified and the Swans will begin their mid season charge. Whatever his reasons, Roos makes some very good points. The game is not broken. Sure, there are ordinary games between ordinary teams, but there always will be. And sometimes the game is slow, but it is often fast and extremely exciting. But the AFL should remember that things don’t necessarily need to change to stay positive.