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Healy: Bang bang, the bounce is dead!
Gerard Healy • February 23rd, 2026 8:31 pm
Bang bang, the bounce is dead!
So far, all we’ve seen this year is one State of Origin game, and a round of second grade club practice matches whose scheduling clearly needs to be much better thought through at AFL house, if it was thought through at all.
Now despite history telling me to be cautious at making an early judgment call on not much evidence in the pre season, I am throwing caution straight out the window and breaking my own rule.
For I’ve seen enough, I’ve seen the future, and I love it.
Greg Swann's decision to ban the bounce, after 30 years of fluffing around with it, is the greatest rule change in the history of the modern game.
Yes, the greatest.
I love the 6-6-6, love the kick out of bounds on the full, love the anti slide rule, but none of them come even close to contention, when you consider the impact of this simple change.
The bounce has tormented the game’s administrators for decades, none of whom wanted to be responsible for killing it off. Senior journos too, have always defended its historic importance to the game and the uniqueness of the bounce, despite the fact that like the dropkick, the 19th and 20th men and a quarter time cigarette, the bounce had clearly had its day decades ago.
We even introduced a secondary ball up, if the bounce didn’t go straight up in the air, to give it a stay of execution for years.
How dumb. In an era where we were trying to get rid of stoppages, and congestion!
And then, along came football's version of John Wayne (Howdy Pilgrim)! The seemingly affable big man from Brisbane rode into town on a big white horse, clippity clop, clippity clop, 10 gallon hat on his head, a Colt 45 concealed in his holster.
For twelve long months he sniffed the breeze at AFL house. Cool as you like, he sized up his targets with boots up on the desk. But he kept his cool, the gun concealed, never firing a shot, even though there were a few obvious faces on wanted posters up on the wall.
And then like lightning, bang bang, he finally pulled out the trusty Colt 45, that no one had seen, when no one was watching, and bang bang took down his target with two clean shots.
The unsuspecting bounce was dead before the Sherrin had hit the ground
And the critters who’d kept it alive for so many years were at once, silenced by fear. Not one has been heard from. Not one.
It took Swann just 12 months, which is a blink of the eye in the history of the game to fix a 30 year old problem.
Bang bang, the bounce was gone.
And the immediate impact has been incredible. The games so far have been supercharged out of the centre ball up.
Ruck Work has returned, replacing the boring Wrestlemania that rewarded the incapable, at the expense of the spectacle.
There’s been very few centre bounce secondary stoppages, in fact I’ve seen only one at the Hangar, replaced by a charge of the light brigade exit out of the centre. Quick feet, quick hands quick ball movement. Goals from centre clearances, full forward being hit on the chest.
The ball speed out of the middle means the Sherrin is arriving into an uncrowded forward line, allowing clever ground ball players to strut their stuff like young Latrelle Pickett who was terrific in his first outing.
Many rucks will flourish, like TDK and Luke Jackson in particular, even the young Moose at Melbourne, but sadly others will flounder badly and ultimately need a bullet.
Already there’s evidence of desperate survival tactics from dinosaurs that Swann will have to eradicate with the same speed of execution, if he is to see his perfect rule change have maximum effect .
Ruckmen, who are long jumping early, pushing out the opponent, eyes on the man not on the ball, are challenging Swann from the outset.
Bang bang Swannee. No mercy, no sympathy for them. Absolutely none.
And just a quick memo to the inner workings of AFL house and its media and ops departments.
If Swann's new rule is to be governed by a line across the middle of the circle, then let’s have a line across the middle of the circle, on all grounds.
Let’s not make room for a digitised AAMI sign for the marketing department in the three metre inner circle with no line, like we did in the State of Origin game, and again on the weekend, there were lines missing on some grounds with a bare inner circle, and a line across the circle on others. Amateur hour at its best.
You might only be in the office two or three days a week, but it’s not school footy, it’s a professional competition that you are running and uniformity of the lines on the ground, for a highly publicised new rule, is not that hard surely.
Get up to speed in there and perhaps try something different in 2026… get on the same page for a change and work as a team, without having to be told from the CEO’s office to lift your game and try talking to each other. It works. Andrew I bet you they didn’t even know. If it was me, a bit of the bang bang treatment at AFL house would surely be on the cards.
I couldn’t believe it, sitting at home watching the speed of the State of Origin game, and then more importantly the games over the weekend, just how excited I was for the season. Speed is finally king again, but it needed one simple rule change to complete the picture.
And we got it.
It was a brilliant move from Swann on many levels given its historical implications. But ultimately it was a simple decision for a clear thinker. The game benefits far more by getting rid of it, than maintaining it.
Two bullets, one major problem almost completely solved with a couple of bullets left in the chamber to tidy up the fringes.
Bang bang, the bounce is dead but the game has come alive.
RIP Bounce. You won’t be missed.
