Never one to shy away from producing a good sound bite, Carlton coach Mick Malthouse has labelled the AFL game as unrecognisable in a scathing rant directed at modern AFL coaching tactics.
The three-time premiership coach in his fourth coaching stint across a 30-year career is not a fan of the modern game and believes a tinkering of the rules is needed to restore the sport to the glory days of “yesteryear”.
“If I wasn’t coaching, I’d hate the game,” Malthouse said from the Peter Mac breakfast at the MCG on Thursday.
“We’ve moved so far away from what our Australian game was.”
Malthouse questioned whether the AFL could sustain its popularity among other Australian sports in its current state.
“We don’t see the contests of yesteryear,” he said.
“I don’t know if the public really enjoy that …
“At the end of the day, we’re supposed to be entertainers. Maybe down the track, and we do have some say in where the game is going, we’ve got to change it.”
The 701-game coach is concerned with the pack-like scrums which follow the ball around the ground. Modern defensive and possession tactics have turned many away from the game, but it isn’t the only controversy following the league in 2014.
Following in the NFL’s footsteps as early as 2007, the AFL quickly began placing a greater emphasis in protecting players from above the shoulder contact by first awarding free kicks to players hit high with their head over the ball, also resulting in an automatic reportable offence for reckless culprits.
More recent rules changes aimed at slowly eradicating ‘the bump’ from around the ball contests have resulted in a number of high-profile players missing significant chunks of football for ill-timed hits.
Long-standing AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou stepped down from the AFL’s top job earlier this month, handing the reigns over to Gillon McLachlan, who will likely tackle dwindling attendance figures as his first order of business.
Photo: Chris Hyde/Getty Images
