Not only has there been no significant lift in scoring from centre bounces or kick-ins, but umpiring is more complex and players are more challenged in what should be a simple game.

Most concerning is the reaction of the coaches. If it’s easier for the opposition to score, coaches think more defensively.

The six-six-six rule limits any coach’s ability to make strategic moves during games. It has stymied the advancement of coaching techniques to make the game better.

The AFL will say the rule changes are an overwhelming success. The statistics tell a different story.

In five seasons from 2014-18, teams scored an average of 10.2 points each game from centre bounces. Since 2019 (excluding the COVID-affected 2020 season), scoring from centre bounces has increased by only 0.5 points, reaching 10.7 points each game.

Before the rule change, teams scored from a centre bounce at approximately 23 per cent. Today, it is 24 per cent.

The six-six-six rule has killed innovation and unique set-ups at centre bounces.

Tactics such as varying the wingmen’s starting positioning, the use of high forwards on the defensive side of the centre square line, deploying spare defenders to protect a lead or having attacking forwards surge through the centre square – as the late Phil Walsh, a brilliant coach at Adelaide, regularly did with Eddie Betts – are now lost to the game.

Even the ploy of a red-hot forward clearing out the forward 50 to create space for potential mismatches is gone.

All this sacrificed for just an average 0.5-point increase in scoring.

Meanwhile, the umpires are repeatedly stopping play to warn teams for breaching starting position protocols. It is a mess.

St Kilda coach Ross Lyon expressed his frustration after losing to Hawthorn at the weekend, citing restrictions on the use of the runner. He said it hindered his ability to make crucial game-day moves.

Lyon should instead take issue with those who changed the rule book to stifle the strategic creativity and effectiveness of the league’s best game-day coaches.

The new kick-in rule is a resounding failure. From 2014-18, teams scored an average of 3.9 points from kick-ins each game. Since 2019, this figure has fallen to 3.3 points. Furthermore, the percentage of kick-ins resulting in an inside-50 entry improved by just 1 percentage point from 20 to 21 per cent.

The kick-in to inside-50 conversion rate is up from 19 to 22 per cent from the AFL’s decision to push the man on the mark back an additional five metres in 2021. Despite this change, scoring is now marginally below pre-rule change levels.

All this rule has changed is the eagerness of players stepping out of the goal square during kick-ins, to secure cheap, junk possessions and distort the game’s statistical records.

The stand rule continues to be an embarrassment for the game, failing to generate any increase in scoring. The cry of “stand” from the umpires is annoying in the broadcast microphones.

Loading

And how farcical was it to have Brisbane Lions forward Charlie Cameron told to stand on the mark when he was in agony with an ankle injury earlier this season?

The AFL’s implementation of the six-six-six rule and other recent rule changes have failed to deliver on the promises of enhanced scoring and improving the game’s look. Instead we have confusion, less creativity from coaches and no meaningful benefit.

The AFL should revisit these rule changes. It should encourage coaching innovation and creativity and making the job of the umpire easier.

Change is not always good.