Hand-In-The-Back
The contentious new rule of Hands In The Back has struck a huge amount of debate and MOANING from all sorts of people from Coaches and players to the bloke in the local pub.
Everyone has an opinion and from were I stand it sounds like the majority don’t like the new rule. My thoughts are that this new rule was bought in for a couple of reasons, being to protect the player from being pushed into a contest and gaining a collision injury and the other from forward or backs for that matter winning the football unfairly by playing from behind.
A push in the back has been a push in the back for 100 + years and now you can’t put your hands into an opponent back. Well my answer to this is don’t put your hands in the opponents back, Forwards must use their body or forearm to hold their ground and backmen must play smarter by slightly zoning off an opponent and using pace and leap to counteract their direct opponent.
Youngsters are taught to play in front and when they reach a higher level it doesn’t matter what position they are in, if they can push an opponent out from a contest from behind.
Everyone has an opinion and from were I stand it sounds like the majority don’t like the new rule. My thoughts are that this new rule was bought in for a couple of reasons, being to protect the player from being pushed into a contest and gaining a collision injury and the other from forward or backs for that matter winning the football unfairly by playing from behind.
A push in the back has been a push in the back for 100 + years and now you can’t put your hands into an opponent back. Well my answer to this is don’t put your hands in the opponents back, Forwards must use their body or forearm to hold their ground and backmen must play smarter by slightly zoning off an opponent and using pace and leap to counteract their direct opponent.
Youngsters are taught to play in front and when they reach a higher level it doesn’t matter what position they are in, if they can push an opponent out from a contest from behind.
Leigh Mathews is quoted as saying “I’m for it. It encourages the bloke to play in front. And at the moment players are taking a long time to learn you can’t put flat hands in the opposition’s back, but they’ll learn”
That quote is from an article that can be found here at abc.net.au and it also includes the other side of the argument by Paul Roos.
Another interesting article/blog by Paul Lalor from the Australian can be found here at theaustralian.news.com.au and it makes the point that Aussie Rules football has turned soft due to this rule change. Well Aussie Rules in Tasmania is probably not officiated as strictly as in the AFL but I find it still to be a physical contest were you can still tackle hard, you can still block an opponent and you can still bust packs and fly for marks flat out, even with your knees up.
Maybe I’m just sick of hearing about it. Let’s just get on with watching and playing Footy.
