In episode twenty of Inside Melbourne, the players takeover! Caty Price and Clint Stanaway take a well deserved break as Angus Brayshaw, Dom Tyson and Daniel Cross join the team. We recap the milestone week in Adelaide (3:10), the boys break down the season so far (8:00), Cross discusses the difficulties of being a runner in the AFL (9:00) and we take all your questions from the outer (16:10). Plus find out which photo caption wins the signed jumper this week thanks to our good friends at Zurich (29:00).
With talk swirling about potential rule changes in 2019, the message from this week’s Inside Melbourne hosts, Angus Brayshaw, Dom Tyson and guest, Daniel Cross was clear – leave the game alone.
Cross, a 249-game veteran and now Melbourne’s development and rehabilitation coach, shared his frustrations at suggestions of rule changes.
“Personally, I don’t like it, I don’t like the talk about it. It really gets me angry when people say the game looks terrible and so forth. I’d say try and leave it as much as possible,” Cross said.
“Maxy [Gawn] will hate this, but I’d say bring back the third man up. Waiting for the ruckman to get there and so forth, that slows things down.”
The AFL Competition Committee recently flagged that up to six potential rule changes are being considered, which could be put in place as soon as 2019.
Some of those changes are set to be trialled this weekend in the NEAFL and VFL, with set positions at centre bounces and a longer goal square to be tested.
Cross, who was mentored by the likes of Terry Wallace, Rodney Eade and Paul Roos, voiced concern that any changes could be open for exploitation.
“I just think coaches are smart beasts. There’s coaches all over Australia, but there’s only 18 of the best doing at the top level. They’re hired because they are the best of the best and they’ll find ways [to get around it].
Midfielder Angus Brayshaw, who has emerged as one of the game’s best attacking midfielders in 2018, agreed with Cross that talk about the state of the game was off the mark.
“Even with the talk that the game doesn’t look great; that’s people’s opinions which I don’t agree [with],” Brayshaw said.
“But we’ve had some terrific games this year, we’ve played in some real good ones and I’ve been watching a few around the competition; there’s still unbelievable games.”
Midfielder Dom Tyson also shared the viewpoint of Cross and Brayshaw.
“It tends to be every year there’s a lot of rule changes spoken about. Then we always tend to get a great finals series, which seems to quiet everyone down and they go look at the beauty of the game - the hardness, the pace, the classic final moments, the tension.
“So maybe, it’s all a little bit premature for now.”
