Adelaide star Rory Laird hopes the game’s administrators will leave the rules alone ahead of the next season.
Appointed AFL general manager of football operations in September, former North Melbourne coach Brad Scott recently confirmed the league will continue to tinker in pursuit of more open, flowing football.
“(There won’t be) rule changes as such, but we did talk about some interpretations,” Scott told SEN’s Whateley in November.
“Just bringing back the umpire interpretations back to the way the rules were originally written.”
Players who waste time after a free kick so teammates can flood back to defend are in his crosshairs, but there is a greater challenge on his hands.
Tied up with the contest, holding the ball has been hotly disputed; triple-premiership coach Damien Hardwick has even called for prior opportunity to be abandoned altogether.
Scott hopes to chip away at congestion, but doesn’t want players’ instinct to go and get the ball to be diminished.
“We want to pay the obvious ones, where it’s more challenging is in a stoppage, where there are a lot of players around the ball,” the former North Melbourne coach explained.
“We still want to reward the player who wins the ball first. We want to encourage players to win the ball in the contest.
“Sometimes prior opportunity can be a fraction of a second, or it could be five seconds. So that’s where it becomes a little bit of a challenge for the umpires.
“But we’ve had some really good feedback, and I think we’ll be able to clarify that somewhat.”
Laird, who spent more time at stoppages last season on his way to a second Adelaide best-and-fairest, isn’t sure there is a distinction.
“If you say they’re not going to make changes but they’re going to have a different interpretation, isn’t that the same as making changes?” he queried on SEN SA Breakfast.
“I don’t think I’d change it, to be honest.
“There are always going to be decisions that are hard to make, in terms of how long they have the ball, and whether there’s prior.
"Split second decisions are made, (then) there are obvious ones like when you drag it back in.”
Following the introduction of the stand rule last season, Laird hopes players and coaches are given time to come to grips with the current ruleset.
“I haven’t really had any qualms with any of the rules to be honest, I thought the game was in a pretty good spot,” he went on.
“There has been a fair bit of change over the last four or five years, and I’m one to say ‘why don’t we keep it the same for a little longer, and see how it goes for a few years?’”