Playing the man and not the ball is not football.

Recently, Justin Longmuir,  the coach of the Fremantle Dockers in the Australian Football League (AFL), called for the umpires to provide more protection to his full forward who had been severely manhandled by the opposing full back in a game against Richmond. As some of my Blog readers live overseas and are unfamilar  with Australian Rules football, a few words of explanation are required.

Australian Rules football is a very fast, physical game played over two hours between two sides of 18 players. The grounds are oval shaped, approximately 170 metres long and 140 metres wide. Some grounds ae bigger, some grounds smaller. 

It is a team game but it also a man on man game because each player has a direct opponent.                    Full Back/Full Forward, Centre Half Back/Centre Half Forward and so on. Up until the 1970s teams only had one reserve players to replace anyone who was injured. In 1978 two reserves became available to replace injured players. Injured players, once replaced,  could not return to the game.                           

In the 1990s, the AFL introduced a four man interchange bench. Coaches could now take injured players off and have them temporarily replaced by an interchange player. The patched up injured player could be sent back into the game. As usual coaches abused the new system to their advantage. They began rotating uninjured players on the interchange bench so that they could get fresh legs on the field.  

This radically changed the nature of AFL football.  What was already a fast game became a whole lot faster because refreshed players could run in packs up and down the field all day. As a result, positional man on man contests were replaced by large packs of players around the ball. It also led to a lot more scragging and manhandling. 

In AFL football you cannot manhandle a player who does not have the ball. You can grab and tackle a player in possession of the ball. You can put your arms out to shepherd a player from the ball or from a teammate who is going for the ball. You can also deliver a hip and shoulder bump to an opponent in a contest for the ball. However, if you grab or tackle a player who is not in possession of the ball it is free kick to that player. Or it should be. There used to be one central umpire. Now there are four. They should be constantly looking for any player who is manhandling another player and awarding free kicks against that player wherever it occurs on the field. Coaches would soon change their message.

Justin Longmuir’s call for some protection for his forwards highlights the sad fact that our beloved Aussie Rules football now encourages playing the man instead of the ball. Players hold, grasp and grapple with each other before bouncedowns and boundary throw-ins. Sometimes, as in the case with Docker full forward,  Jye Amiss, players are thrown to the ground even when the ball is more than a kick away.

It was not always like this. I started going to WANFL matches with my Dad in Perth in 1947. There were plenty of really tough footballers playing in those days. But the never scragged their opponents. Why not? Because the umpire would immediately award a free kick for holding the man without the ball. There was plenty of hip and shoulder bumping and fierce tackling, but no scragging. 

Champion ruckmen of those days, like Merv McIntosh, Ray Perry, Jack Clarke, Brian "Blue" Foley and the young Graham Farmer never locked arms as they ran in to contest boundary throwins in the 1950s. Their eyes were on the ball and they used their hips and shoulders to gain position. These days, the opposing ruckmen run in more closely entwined than Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. They are invariably locked together with outstretched arms over or under each other's shoulders.           

I earlier times, footballers were encouraged to play the ball and not the man. Our coaches told us that umpires would favour payers who made the ball their object. Not anymore. In the mid-1960s the game changed. Taggers became key weapons in curbing the opposition’s attacking ball getters and goal kickers. Taggers became claspers and graspers. They were  often penalised but soon  became very skilful in holding their opponents without being penalised.

In the early 2000s the introduction  of the interchange bench made everyone a midfield player. Four players on the bench could be interchanged repeatedly with players on the field. Instead of holding their specified positions, all players could now run up and down the field to assist teammates  moving the ball forward or defending opposition forward thrusts. It sometimes makes for very fast moving football as players race towards their goal, moving the ball forwards with lightning fast hand passes and accurate kicks to teammates. Sometimes, it means you have twenty or thirty players milling around in rugby like scrums and 'all in' rolling, wrestling matches. These days, we often see all 36 onfield players inside the fifty metre arc. Play is so congested and rugby like that  scragging is common. Umpires often just call  “Play on” to keep the ball moving.

These days coaches clearly instruct their players to play the man instead of the ball. The field umpires,  the four of them, often just let it happen. How often do we see players wrap their arms around their opponents, throw them to the ground and then clasp the incoming ball as the field umpire indicates, “Fair mark”. What happened to holding the man without the ball? Or putting your knee in his face?

In his response to Longmuir’s request that the laws of the game be upheld, Adam Yze, the Richmond coach, typified what all AFL coaches now say, "Our defenders try to limit the amount of access their forwards get at the ball. So, if they are manhandling then that’s the game.”  No, it’s not!

Manhandling never was part of our game. The laws of football forbid it.                                                    

Time for the umpires to lift their game and give us back our game.