World Footy News

Less than two weeks ago I wrote an opinion piece suggesting that the relatively new AFL interpretation of the rules, intended to protect players' heads and necks, is actually creating an increase in injury that will inevitably lead to a very serious injury at some level of the game. It seems former Hawthorn champion and four time premiership coach Leigh Matthews has come to a similar conclusion.

The basic premise is that by rewarding a player putting their head over the ball at the last moment of a collision, creating high contact from an upright player, the League has actually encouraged players to endanger themselves. Yes the other player in general tries to avoid contact, but often it is either unavoidable or the player also goes low, risking their own head and neck.

This is now occurring many times per game, and almost every match sees players nursing sore heads or necks. In Friday night's West Coast versus Essendon clash, which opened Round 4 of the 2010 season, it again happened. This wasn't the classic case I have argued, this time neither player went really low, but both still confronted the ball front on attempting to take possession, and their heads clashed, resulting in a stoppage in play and at least one (Brad Dalzeil) leaving the playing arena. As well as the more prominent injuries others are also happening, such as Josh Kennedy who also came up sore from ducking their head into a collision (goalsquare, second quarter).

The pleas on this website are unlikely to cause a re-think, so it was encouraging to hear AFL legend Leigh Matthews identify the root cause of the issue (at least as I see it) as per above. He noted the issue during the television commentary in the second quarter, and again discussed it at half time. The other issue debated is the increasing speed of the game, which is also leading to more collisions. Hopefully with Matthews raising the problem, the AFL will examine not just the speed but the "head over the ball" origin of this new wave of injuries.

Again, a player with his head already over the ball must be protected, but a way must be found to not encourage them to recklessly run or dive head first in to danger. Otherwise, as more and more players abandon the protective hip and shoulder in favour of the kamikaze technique, the injury rate threatens to spiral. Okay, point made.