2007 rule Changes and Interpretations

[am Bays]

Last night we held a lecture session on the new rules and interpretations for the 2007 season.

In a nutshell if you are in front position or are first to the footy your chances of getting a free kick have increased dramatically in 2007. Any front on contact to a player with his head over the footy is to be pinged, this includes contact on an angle but on the front half of the body i.e. front part of the shoulder. If we think it is excessive force especially towards the head we were told to report as well.

IMHO I believe the AFL are trying with this rule and the new hands in the back in a marking contest interpretation, is to make it realtively easier for supporters watching to understand the decision and for new umpires to be able to make decisions more easily as they are making teh deicsion makin g relatively more objective.

For example in the past if we saw hands in the back we had to make the quick decisions: 1. was contact incidental and 2. has the player in front "dived" as soon as he felt hands in the back. Now it is more simple soon as you see hands in the back it is a free kick.

However the man behind (i.e. reading teh flight of the ball better) can still bump and use his forearm to hold his position (however the forearm can't be used to push, only protect in others words it can't move).

Other big change over here is players don't have to wait for the goal umpire to wave the flags to kick in after a point, they just have to wait for the signal - so I don't know if that rule will be adopted in metro and country footy in SA? However clubs aren't permitted to have extra footys at each end. So I can see some deliberate time wasting and kicking ballls way over the back of the cars here in country footy

Other stricter interpretations we were told to follow on from last year are holding, pushing, tackling or blocking and opponent before or after a marking contest and deliberate kicking out of bounds. As they were newer interpretations last year we were told to go easy on the less skilled footballers this year we have been told to be stricter in our interpretations.

So it will be interesting to see how the rules are enforced thie year in all competitions AFL, SANFL and in the country and metro competitions.

In a nutshell though it is going to pay to be in front position and first to the footy in 2007.

[PhilG]

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[floataboy]

we had a trial on the weekend in rural sa with the new rules and fair to say it was pretty ordinary. mind you the coaches never found out about the changes until 1 hour before the game so it had not been practiced. will make for a very intersting year...