who confirmed he was in doubt to begin the season with a calf complaint<\/a>, said he was in a \u201cunique\u201d position as one of the elder statesmen in the game. <\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s unique because I\u2019ve never sat in this position. Where it\u2019s like, yeah, this could be it,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m mindful of just how great the game is and how much fun it is. And making sure the decision is the best one for the club and the direction we\u2019re going and not a selfish one.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it\u2019s just so much fun to fun and be a part of that you want to keep enjoying it.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u2018RED FLAG\u2019 WITH RUCK RULES THAT COULD GET TWEAKED<\/p>\n
The AFL\u2019s new ruck rules have already exposed a \u201cred flag\u201d that an umpiring great suggested needs to be tweaked. <\/p>\n
The polarising new rules, which state rucks can\u2019t cross the centre-circle line nor engage with their opponent, have already been exploited over the pre-season.<\/p>\n
There were some instances where the umpire didn\u2019t throw the ball up straight, leading to a ruck drawing their opponent to illegally cross the centre-circle line<\/p>\n
There\u2019s also been examples where one ruck has primarily focused on leaping to contest to the footy \u2014 as they\u2019re encouraged to \u2014 whereas others have stayed down to and tried to manoeuvre their opponent in the air.<\/p>\n
Curnow has ‘Buddy Presence’ Heeney | 03:54<\/p>\n
But there might be a crack down on a player that interferes with another that\u2019s already left the ground, according to umpiring legend Ray Chamberlain. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s one more watch this space … one player\u2019s sole objective is to contest the football, and the other ruckman\u2019s primary objective was to get rid of his opponent first,\u201d Chamberlain said watching a contest between St Kilda\u2019s Rowan Marshall and Essendon\u2019s Archer May from the clubs\u2019 pre-season clash.<\/p>\n
\u201cCurrently that is legal, but prior to 2017, that was a free kick for a block. I suspect we\u2019ll see some movement over the year in relation this … I suspect that\u2019s going to need a tweak.\u201d <\/p>\n
AFL 360 co-host Gerard Whateley responded: \u201cIf you bumper bar the opposition ruckman who\u2019s left the ground and has no centre of gravity … that\u2019s the red flag at the moment, I reckon.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Patrick Dangerfield has opened up on his future. Plus the \u201cred flag\u201d with the new ruck rules that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":515890,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[233553,638,64,63,55,639,684,14451,147203,1129,257932,183053,107302,61,7492,19100,257931,39209,244612,60969,28421,243729,85,257933],"class_list":{"0":"post-515889","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-aami-community-series-live","9":"tag-afl","10":"tag-au","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-australian-football-league","13":"tag-australianfootballleague","14":"tag-ben-cotton","15":"tag-calf-complaint","16":"tag-centre-circle-line","17":"tag-charlie-curnow","18":"tag-elder-statesmen","19":"tag-father-time","20":"tag-gary-lyon","21":"tag-gerard-whateley","22":"tag-hawthorn-hawks","23":"tag-jai-newcombe","24":"tag-opposition-ruckman","25":"tag-patrick-dangerfield","26":"tag-pre-season-match-sims","27":"tag-ray-chamberlain","28":"tag-red-flag","29":"tag-ruck-rules","30":"tag-sports","31":"tag-umpiring-legend"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515889","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=515889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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