am Bays wrote:
This 50 m law for players moving off the mark will be interesting.
Basically the AFL are trying to stop the team defence, currently if a player looks to run around behind his team mate for to outnumber their opponents on the fat side the defender who was originally marking that players pushes over to the take the mark and the original player on the tries to shut down the payer who has run around to create the over lap before the disposal or the umpire has called play on.
Now if that happens the player on the mark has to wait until the kick or play on has been called thereby creating an overlap, time and space so the attacking team can clear the contest. The original defender will have to run around behind the mark to try and block it off making it harder to do so.
Slight movement sides ways off the mark will be OK. The umpiring key for the 50 m will be if the player on the mark comes off the mark sideways before disposal or play on call to block the attacker trying to play on.
I believe the main action they are trying to stop the lateral movement of the player on the mark who is trying to defend the kick to the corridor/hotspot. Even at local level we coach that. Say ball is on centre wing near the boundary, the player on the mark moves laterally 10m from where the direct mark would be, encouraging the down the line kick, this means if they want to hit the 45 degree kick they have to go over the mark which is a much harder kick and the ball will be in the air for much longer, allowing intercepts.
Also applies to when a player is 60-70m out you rarely see a low pass to a leading forward these days, they are just high bombs, defending the mark has become an art form.
Its going to be horrible for the umps, the first month of footy in 2021 will be shocking.