{"id":250981,"date":"2025-10-30T13:26:17","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T13:26:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/250981\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T13:26:17","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T13:26:17","slug":"clubs-told-of-more-potential-rule-changes-on-the-way-for-the-2027-season-and-beyond-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/250981\/","title":{"rendered":"Clubs told of more potential rule changes on the way for the 2027 season and beyond"},"content":{"rendered":"

Players who drop at the knees to draw head-high contact would risk giving away a free kick, and the shot clock would be scrapped for set shots from outside 50, under further rule changes being considered by the AFL for 2027.<\/p>\n

The league on Wednesday announced seven rule changes<\/a> that will be introduced for the 2026 season, but clubs have also been advised of a \u201cwatch list\u201d of more potential changes, which will be monitored and debated ahead of the following season.<\/p>\n

\"Dylan<\/p>\n

Dylan Moore is tackled by Jack Sinclair.Credit: Getty Images<\/p>\n

The AFL told clubs they are troubled by the habit of players dropping at the knees and lowering their body into a tackle to try to draw a free kick. In part, the aim is to protect players from themselves and stop them from risking concussions by using their heads to draw free kicks.<\/p>\n

Under the potential change, a player who collapsed their knees in this fashion would be deemed to have had prior opportunity, and so, once tackled, could give a way a free kick rather than draw one.<\/p>\n

The difficulty of finding the right language to draft a new rule, which can be applied as the AFL intends, is one of the problems in making a change.<\/p>\n

The AFL on Wednesday changed the rules for next year to consider a shrug in a tackle to be prior opportunity. The proposed change on the watch list would go a step further.<\/p>\n

The league declined to comment on the areas being considered for change.<\/p>\n

Other potential rule changes on the watch list, according to two industry sources with detailed knowledge of the list, are:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Players who drop at the knees to draw head-high contact would risk giving away a free kick, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250982,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-250981","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}