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Sport Nation
Four steps to improve the AFL using common sense
Mark Duffield • May 21st, 2025 4:00 pm
So the AFL’s heavyweights have met with four heavyweight coaches in a Fitzroy bar on Monday night to discuss issues confronting the league after a nightmare fortnight where the league’s senior executive has been questioned and criticised more than once over its handling of key issues.
As a person who knows this environment – and by this environment I mean Fitzroy pubs – I feel obligated to contribute to this discussion.
Many is the time I have entered establishments in Fitzroy sprouting high-brow knowledge and common sense. A few times I have also exited talking fluent shorthand and sprouting complete gibberish.
But not this time my friends – this is too important. As Leslie Nielsen said in Flying High – That’s just what they will be expecting me to do.
So here is my first four steps to improve the AFL using common sense. The trouble, of course, with common sense is that it isn’t that common. But for the good of humanity – here we go.
1 - Return to three umpires
Scrap the four umpire system and return to three umpires. This is a too many and not enough issue. That is to say, with four umps there are too many different interpretations and not enough good umpires. The result is inconsistency and inconsistency is the worst mistake umpires can make. Lets keep the better ones out there and see if we can get them to agree more.
2 - Change holding the ball interpretation
Scrap the new holding the ball interpretation and return to how it was in 2024. The new interpretation leads to what can only be described as no-prior-opportunity-no-fault free kicks which simply do not pass the pub test and leave fans confused and frustrated. It is a nonsense. This is not the game moving forward. This is the game going round in circles and disappearing up its own bum.
3 - Don't hold pretend investigations
Do not hold pretend investigations into on-field incidents that did not require further investigation in the first place. The Lachie Schultz incident could have been put to bed with a simple statement that while the league would have preferred that play was stopped that there was a lot going on and the umpires were monitoring Schultz who was trying to get back to his feet. That the league would continue to coach umpires to stop play quickly after an injury but no further action was needed. Most on-field incidents can be explained by the video and the audio. We do not need Royal Commissions. We do not need multiple statements in a week on one incident with each statement contradicting the one before it. As the Mary Coustas character Effie would say: “How embarrassment”.
4 - Actually make the head sacrosanct
When you make the head sacrosanct don’t just talk the talk, walk the walk. Head knocks that involve even an element of carelessness have to be punished, not excused. That means Brayden Maynard should have been suspended for the bump that finished Angus Brayshaw’s career. It means that Rory Lobb should have been punished for punching Mason Cox in the head and leaving him with a black eye even though it was an accident. When you let some players off claiming their acts were accidental you just make hypocrites of yourself. Nearly every football act that causes injury is accidental these days. Nobody takes the field with homicidal intent anymore. Sometimes, in the heat of the moment and in a split second they do things which result in harm and those are the things we have to try and coach out of them through consequences to make the game safer.
Four more thoughts
First thought is on Jeremy McGovern – set to consult the AFL’s concussion panel on when – or even if – he should return to football after not progressing through the AFL’s concussion protocols in more than two weeks. McGovern’s brilliant intercept mark in the 2018 Grand Final was the high point in a super career where he established himself as one of the greatest intercept defenders in the game’s history. It triggered the extraordinary passage of play that culminated in the Dom Sheed goal that won the premiership. West Coast fans will remember it forever. It would be nice if McGovern gets to remember it too. If there is any doubt at all on his health and wellbeing, then 'Gov' needs to stop now.
Second thought is on Freo midfielder Neil Erasmus who got a coaches vote for his efforts in the game against GWS. It is probably Erasmus’s best game in the AFL. Which means this is his best opportunity – over the next four weeks – to nail down the berth that has eluded him over the past 18 months.
Third thought is on the game we are all looking forward to this week – the Bailey Smith Cup to be fought out between Geelong and the Western Bulldogs at GMHBA Stadium on Thursday night – as I said earlier in the editorial – no-one goes out there with homicidal intent – but I am guessing blokes like Tom Liberatore might have a bit of GST added to their usual intensity and effort after Bailey Smith mocked them playing in Ballarat after quitting the club. The Dogs are flying. I wonder if a few might fly into Bailey with extra intent.
Fourth thought is on cricket and Cameron Green: The big bloke’s second ton for Gloucestershire is surely enough for the Aussie selectors to back him in to play in the world test championship final against South Africa. Green is acclimatised to English conditions and has a game which suits them. He has to play.
