Whenever I hear someone saying that the AFL’s scores are too low or that these rolling mauls are becoming too much like rugby, my reaction is one of disgust because defence is becoming an endangered species, on the brink of extinction. Defence, together with offense are the main facets of any team game. The critical idea of defence in sport is to stop the other team scoring through any legal means possible, and thus coaches use tactics and structures to minimise the damage by the other team on the scoreboard. Many of these tactics and structures have been banned by sports and leagues to restore a “beautiful aesthetic” to the game. In the AFL, Paul Roos, then coach of the Sydney Swans was criticised by AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou for his team playing “unattractive football”. This by a man, who in his time as CEO, did more than anyone to restrict the role of defence in the AFL. Many supporters of the AFL, mainly of clubs that lost to Sydney during that premiership winning season, agreed with Demetriou, saying the football Roos’ team played was “ugly” and various other denigrating phrases.
Defensive tactics should be and will always be an integral part of any game, but many bosses of sports have put in place draconian measures to make offense the order of the day. One example of this in the AFL is the deliberate out of bounds, to stop teams clearing the danger of an opposition attack to the safest part of the ground. In cricket, there are the ridiculous field restrictions to stop captains and coaches putting fielders where they want to. And from the king of the dumb anti-defensive sport, basketball, there is the defensive 3 seconds rule, basically stopping elite level teams from a zone defence, because most zones revolve around blocking off the key and lay-up opportunities, and also there is the blocking rule, which means an attacking player can run into a defender, and if the defender moves even slightly he/she is charged with a foul.
The second part of the anti-defensive rights movement is the idea spun to us by sporting head honchos that high scoring matches are more popular to watch than low scoring games. This is a fallacy because the reason people go to games isn’t to watch a beautiful looking match, it’s instead to see their team win. To most fans it doesn’t matter if their team wins 23-22 or 125-115, a win is still a win. Evidence of this is that the highest scoring VFL/AFL Grand Final of all time, the 1972 decider between Carlton and Richmond, when the score was 177-150 had a lower crowd than the 1968 one when the score was 56-53. People would rather see a strong battle between offense and defence, but too often in sports, defence is neglected and abused to create the illusion of a “beautiful” game. We need our major sports to find a way to allow more defensive tactical rights to coaches and teams to stop offense having a monopoly on modern sport.
The Paddy File 