Footy in the North East will look slightly different in 2026, with governing body AFL North East Border confirming there will be rule adjustments for the upcoming season.<\/p>\n
In a release sent out Thursday morning, AFL NEB regional manager Zac Hedin confirmed a rule chance was being introduced for the 2026 season, concerning rule 18.4, concerning ruck contests.<\/p>\n
\u201cAFL North East Border confirms that only one variation\/interpretation will apply for the 2026 season across all AFLNEB affiliated leagues,\u201d the release reads.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlayers are no longer required to nominate for a ruck contest; however, no more than one ruck from each team may contest the throw-up\/in.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis position aligns with AFL Victoria\u2019s direction and will ensure consistency for the Border Umpire Group across all seven affiliated leagues in which they officiate, as well as providing clarity and uniform application for players, coaches and local football stakeholders.”<\/p>\n
The 2026 season will serve as a period of observation in relation to how this interpretation is applied at the elite AFL level, and to further assess whether, and when, any additional changes should be implemented at local community football level.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Footy in the North East will look slightly different in 2026, with governing body AFL North East Border…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501668,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-501667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501667","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=501667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}