The centre bounce, it once had relevance and then they introduced the inner circle to prevent ruckmen having a long runup and hurting each other. The moment that happened the bounce became irrelevant and has since become a problem.
The bounce was there to prevent one ruckman domination another and to move the stoppage around slightly and keep things a little more open as mids could not predict exactly where the ruckmen may meet. Now the inner circle keeps things in the same spot and prevents ruck domination etc. It no longer has a purpose.
IMO if the rules committee can get rid of having to kick the ball out of the goal square, add an inner circle, bring in the stand rule, they can get rid of the bounce.
Pros
Traditional. Ok I think it's a pointless tradition but traditionalists who don't like change will like the bounce. Because we've always done it.
It's ascetic. It looks good. It looks like football. no it doesn't. You know what's not ascetic and looks like crap? The umpire starting the game or restarting play with a bounce and then the anticlimax of blowing their whistle to recall it and throw it up.
I'm sorry I can't see any pros that it brings to the game.
Cons
Umpires. There is already a shortage of umpires and quality ones so why make the game even harder to officiate over. The requirement of having to bounce the ball is keeping some umpires out of the game, that's been openly discussed. Umpires have also complained about injuries. The gist of it is they don't want it.
Wasting time. There have been a number of close games where the result has been decided due to recalled bounces. The recall eats up valuable time, teams run out of time to score in quarters affected by recalled bounces. There has been plenty of other examples of close games or draws where there has been a lot of recalled bounces and late scoring opportunities. The results of games should not be affected because time is taken off the clock due to random umpire error. Imagine a grand final result affected because someone was one second short of scoring and changing the result in a quarter with recalled bounces?
Not Ascetic. It looks terrible, it's frustrating, it's deflating, it takes away from the game. The AFL season was literally started with a recalled bounce this year. How exciting.
Imagine showing AFL footy to someone and having to explain that. What sports have to come to a stop or eats up game time because the official makes a mistake?
Adds nothing to the game, brings nothing to the game, it just causes problems and affects results by shortening quarters.
Solution
Get rid of the bounce, the umpires throw up a hell of a lot of balls and it's no problem, throw them all up.
Get rid of the inner circle and go back to ruckmen injuring each other.
Keep it and keep f***ing up games and the viewing experience with this outdated mess of a rule.
The bounce was there to prevent one ruckman domination another and to move the stoppage around slightly and keep things a little more open as mids could not predict exactly where the ruckmen may meet. Now the inner circle keeps things in the same spot and prevents ruck domination etc. It no longer has a purpose.
IMO if the rules committee can get rid of having to kick the ball out of the goal square, add an inner circle, bring in the stand rule, they can get rid of the bounce.
Pros
Traditional. Ok I think it's a pointless tradition but traditionalists who don't like change will like the bounce. Because we've always done it.
It's ascetic. It looks good. It looks like football. no it doesn't. You know what's not ascetic and looks like crap? The umpire starting the game or restarting play with a bounce and then the anticlimax of blowing their whistle to recall it and throw it up.
I'm sorry I can't see any pros that it brings to the game.
Cons
Umpires. There is already a shortage of umpires and quality ones so why make the game even harder to officiate over. The requirement of having to bounce the ball is keeping some umpires out of the game, that's been openly discussed. Umpires have also complained about injuries. The gist of it is they don't want it.
Wasting time. There have been a number of close games where the result has been decided due to recalled bounces. The recall eats up valuable time, teams run out of time to score in quarters affected by recalled bounces. There has been plenty of other examples of close games or draws where there has been a lot of recalled bounces and late scoring opportunities. The results of games should not be affected because time is taken off the clock due to random umpire error. Imagine a grand final result affected because someone was one second short of scoring and changing the result in a quarter with recalled bounces?
Not Ascetic. It looks terrible, it's frustrating, it's deflating, it takes away from the game. The AFL season was literally started with a recalled bounce this year. How exciting.
Imagine showing AFL footy to someone and having to explain that. What sports have to come to a stop or eats up game time because the official makes a mistake?
Adds nothing to the game, brings nothing to the game, it just causes problems and affects results by shortening quarters.
Solution
Get rid of the bounce, the umpires throw up a hell of a lot of balls and it's no problem, throw them all up.
Get rid of the inner circle and go back to ruckmen injuring each other.
Keep it and keep f***ing up games and the viewing experience with this outdated mess of a rule.
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