The AFL\u2019s highly contentious ruck change has been thrust into the spotlight with the league forced to admit the umpires got it wrong on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The new rules mean ruckmen are unable to cross the centre line before engaging with their opposition.<\/p>\n
The change was made to bring more athletic and jumping rucks back into the game and to move away from strong bodied rucks engaging and dominating proceedings.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday Geelong\u2019s Sam De Koning was paid a free kick in the third quarter after Carlton\u2019s Marc Pittonet stepped around his leap and grabbed the ball before looking to launch forward.<\/p>\n
As Pittonet went to dispose, umpire Brendan Hosking blew his whistle and awarded a free kick against the Blues big man for \u201ccrossing the line\u201d in the centre.<\/p>\n
Watch the contentious moment unfold in the video player above<\/p>\n
On Thursday however the league reviewed the decision and stated the wrong call was made and it instead should have been play on.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe think play on is the correct call \u2013 not a free kick that was paid,\u201d the AFL said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe think Pittonet only goes over the line at the end of the contest to try and catch the ball. SDK also jumps very early and actually crosses the line just before Pittonet crosses the line to get the ball. We think this is different to the Hawthorn example we looked at last week where Hawthorn\u2019s first movement is to cross the line before the ball is even contested.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new rule change has found itself under an intense light since it was introduced and on Wednesday former AFL star Josh Jenkins unloaded over the incident.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is comical. And will get worse as we go,\u201d Jenkins wrote on X alongside a video of the moment.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Fox Footy commentator and goalkicking legend Jason Dunstall said the league would need to look at the interpretations of the rule.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was De Koning who messed his jump up,\u201d Dunstall said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s probably one they will look at and go, \u2018Maybe that was not the right decision\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
Melbourne ruckman Max Gawn has been vocal about the rule changes and said after the State of Origin it will force big bull rucks like him to change up their game.<\/p>\n
The 34-year-old however said he was excited about the curveball being thrown up late in his career.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am excited, I feel like 17 years in I\u2019ve been given a little curveball I didn\u2019t think I was going to get,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am back watching vision (but) it\u2019s been hard watching vision because technically they weren\u2019t doing it last year, so it\u2019s hard to really watch it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think after this community series stuff I will start watching a bit more, then I\u2019ve got my chance to play a community game against Toby (Nankervis) on Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have been relatively outspoken, I don\u2019t love the rule but the rule is there so I have to learn how to use it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gawn said he still expects some of the older competitors to test the umpires\u2019 decision making against some of the more athletic big men.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love jumping and have always been a jumper, and the last few years I have been getting slightly grumpy that I am not jumping as much anymore,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am excited to jump, I think they\u2019ve gone maybe a tad too far but I have always added jumping to my weights program.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have been trying a few different things, I am obviously, potentially, not going to win a jump off between me and Luke Jackson.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I have to find a way to get around that, that\u2019s what all of us will be testing at different points, how far we can test the rule.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am hoping the AFL didn\u2019t want this, one ruckman completely dominate the rest as the best jumper out there \u2013 there\u2019s got to be a tiny bit of ruck craft.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a few older guys who don\u2019t have the hops anymore: myself, Toby, Jarrod Witts, Reilly O\u2019Brien, we\u2019ve got to find ways to get around it as well as improve our jump.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he isn\u2019t worried about his own game, saying he\u2019ll still have influence around the ground.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I have personally made my game a lot away from the ruck, so I get there\u2019s been a couple of changes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere will be less throw ins, the ball will go quicker and the centre bounce is basically a jump off.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I feel like a lot of the impact I have with my team and my game is my marking around the ground.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ruck stuff I do take notice of and you don\u2019t want someone like Tom De Koning to get you at centre bounce, so you need to work that out, but I think most people will stick to what they\u2019re normally good at.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The AFL\u2019s highly contentious ruck change has been thrust into the spotlight with the league forced to admit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507958,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,254875,13120,231419,254867,254873,254874,254871,88449,25882,12149,80106,15626,12097,13664,254868,254870,254872,16205,19064,85,56545,254869],"class_list":["post-507957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-brendan-hosking","tag-centre-bounce","tag-centre-line","tag-community-game","tag-community-series-stuff","tag-contentious-ruck-change","tag-contentious-rule-changes","tag-james-mckern","tag-jarrod-witts","tag-jason-dunstall","tag-josh-jenkins","tag-luke-jackson","tag-max-gawn","tag-reilly-obrien","tag-ruck-craft","tag-ruck-rule","tag-ruck-stuff","tag-rule-changes","tag-sam-de-koning","tag-sports","tag-video-player","tag-weights-program"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507957","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=507957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}