Racing
League
Rugby
Cricket
Golf
Motorsport
Combat Sports
Football
Netball
Basketball
Other Sports
Sport Nation
Cornes: The embarrassing reason the AFL had to change its rules
SEN • October 30th, 2025 10:00 am
Kane Cornes has assessed the AFL’s rule changes and amendments which were released on Wednesday.
The AFL announced a crackdown on select rules, implementing seven rule changes ahead of the 2026 season.
New AFL football boss Greg Swann has overseen the alterations "with a focus on making the game easier for our umpires to adjudicate and also reducing total match length".
Having assessed the amendments, Cornes has one major bugbear - these changes have only been made because rules were changed in the first place.
“My overriding thought on this is that most of these rule changes are as a result of the AFL already changing the rules,” Cornes said on SEN Breakfast.
“The stand rule situation is a rule change off the back of another rule change. So they got the first rule change wrong and they have to adjust the rule again to fix it.
“The insufficient intent rule has now led to last disposal out of bounds. So they’ve had to change the rule again because we changed the adjudication of the rule.
“The ruck rule at the centre bounce, we’ve got to change that because we changed the rule to allow the rucks to cross the line.
“The ruck nomination is changed now because we changed the rule that said you had to nominate rucks.
“The kick-in rule - they’ve shortened the time because they changed the kick-in rule.
“When you change rules it leads to problems and this has led to another seven rule changes, largely in reaction to rules they’ve already changed.
“Just because they have made seven rule changes doesn’t mean this is going to be the last of it. There’s going to be problems with this.
“All of these are rule changes off the back of rule changes which happens when you change the rules so often.”
Cornes and co-host Sam Edmund also agreed that the ‘shrugging in the tackle’ prior opportunity rule will only cause further confusion for players and umpires alike.
“The crackdown on players shrugging which will now be seen as prior opportunity is really difficult to adjudicate,” Cornes added.
“We’ve seen that already. Umpires don’t know whether to pay a free kick or play on for players that just slightly lower their centre of gravity or shrug.
“Why aren’t you allowed to shrug? I’m not sure that should be prior. I think that will be really confusing.”
Edmund says it will just make split-second decisions much more difficult for the umpires.
“I struggle to see how it makes it easier - it’s infinitely harder because it’s another layer to contend with as a decision maker,” Edmund said.
“You’re allowed to fend and you’re allowed to shrug, but he leagues is saying if you do it and you don’t break the tackle then you are gone.
“That sounds good in theory but it is so hard. A lot of these shrugs are the players are doing it to bring the tackle up high.
“So is the initial tackle high or on the point of the shoulder? Is he shrugging it? Has he had prior initially?
“It is another layer for the white blower to contend with and all in a split second.”
However, there were some rule changes and amendments that did make sense to Cornes.
“Some of them were needed. We’ve been complaining about the ruck nomination setup around the ground for a long time. I think that is a positive move.
“It was farcical to think that an umpire would delay throwing the ball up until he had to clear nominees. So I think that is good.
“I’ve got no issue with the kick-in time being shortened, more in line with how long players get around the ground. I don’t think we’ll notice much of that.
“The new centre bounce situation where the rucks can’t cross the line is great.”
But the pair didn’t see eye to eye on everything.
Listen to the debate on rules below:
