Port Adelaide premiership winner Kane Cornes has taken aim at the AFL over the seven key rule changes announced for next season, and predicts they will simply lead to more ‘problems’ for the league. It comes after AFL football boss Greg Swann revealed the changes on Wednesday, which are focused around streamlining games and cutting down time-wasting.
Among the seven new law interpretations, players will be penalised under the last-disposal out of bounds rule in 2026. A free kick will be awarded against players who have the last disposal before the ball crosses the boundary line between the 50m arcs. The tweak is aimed at removing some of the umpire guesswork around the existing insufficient intent rule.
Kane Cornes has taken aim at the AFL’s seven new rules, with tweaks to ruck contests among the key changes for next season. Pic: Getty
However, insufficient intent will remain in place inside the 50m arcs. The AFL has also removed the requirement for a player to start in the goal square at centre ball-ups, while a competing ruckman cannot cross the centre circle line and engage with their opponent prior to contesting the ball.
A shrug in a tackle will now be deemed prior opportunity and a player must stand if they are within the protected area – within five metres – when a mark or free kick is paid. Players will also have a reduced amount of time to bring the ball back into play after a behind – eight seconds down from 12.
Swann believes scrapping the need for players to nominate for a ruck contest could have the biggest impact. He claims it often takes up to 25 seconds for ruckmen to get into position, so umpires will just ‘ball it up’ and whichever players are in position will be able to contest it.
The AFL hopes the changes will reduce game times by about three to four minutes. “The quarters ended up going out to, on average, over 35 (minutes),” Swann said. “We think that’s too long. The other thing that’s happened in the last few years is that the actual time of the ball being in play has reduced as well. So the game’s got longer, but the actual playing time’s got less.”
Teams won’t have to nominate players in ruck contests in 2026, in one of the key rule changes announced by the AFL for next season. Pic: Getty
Kane Cornes predicts rule changes will lead to fresh issues
But Cornes is less enthusiastic about the rule tweaks and suggested the AFL were simply fixing problems they created in the first place with previous changes. “The stand rule situation is a rule change off the back of another rule change. So they got the first rule change wrong and they have to adjust the rule again to fix it,” he told SEN radio.
“The insufficient intent rule has now led to last disposal out of bounds. So they’ve had to change the rule again because we changed the adjudication of the rule. The ruck rule at the centre bounce, we’ve got to change that because we changed the rule to allow the rucks to cross the line.”
And the AFL pundit predicted the latest changes would inevitably lead to more issues down the track. “Just because they have made seven rule changes doesn’t mean this is going to be the last of it,” he added. “There’s going to be problems with this. All of these are rule changes off the back of rule changes which happens when you change the rules so often.”
Kane Cornes (centre) says the constant changing of rules in the AFL will simply lead to more problems in the future. Pic: Getty
Cornes anticipated the ‘shrugging in the tackle’ prior opportunity rule will cause added confusion for players and umpires, and is ‘really difficult to adjudicate’. He said: “Umpires don’t know whether to pay a free kick or play on for players that just slightly lower their centre of gravity or shrug. Why aren’t you allowed to shrug? I’m not sure that should be prior. I think that will be really confusing.”
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He did agree that scrapping ruck nomination was among several ‘positive moves’ from the AFL though. “It was farcical to think that an umpire would delay throwing the ball up until he had to clear nominees. So I think that is good,” he said.
“I’ve got no issue with the kick-in time being shortened, more in line with how long players get around the ground. I don’t think we’ll notice much of that… (and) the new centre bounce situation where the rucks can’t cross the line is great.”
with AAP