The centre bounce has become a relic. It's time for the AFL to bring back the chaos or scrap it

Sydney Morning Herald

11-07-2025

'What can you tell me about the centre bounce of the ball? It goes anywhere, so it's really, really hard for the players ... if the ball bounces sideways, they're going to move,' Suns coach Damien Hardwick said.
Geelong skipper Patrick Dangerfield described it as not a 'valuable enough part of the game to protect', while Brisbane Lions coach Chris Fagan said, 'I'm not a fan of the bounce ... it contributes to umpire contact. It bounces, goes all over the place.'
Removing the bounce is a decision the AFL Commission can make as it was not enshrined in the 2014 Laws of the Game Charter. Under the fundamental element category of the game, it says : 'At the start of each quarter and after each goal, play is resumed by a ruck contest at a centre bounce or ball-up.'
Removing the bounce to help reduce umpire-player contact (a counter-argument is that the certainty a ball-up provides crowds players around the umpire, making them more vulnerable) is not the only reason it has been in the gun.
Those arguing for its elimination want to keep good decision makers in the game, even if they were ordinary bouncers. Let's face it, in what other sport – apart from perhaps skating in ice hockey – are umpires required to execute a physical skill?
The ball is now thrown up at all centre bounces in the AFLW. In the AFL, it has been thrown up around the ground since 2013 and umpires can be exempted from bouncing the ball due to the risk of injury.
The bounce must go up within a circle 10 metres in diameter and only the rucks can contest it. If the ball goes too far from the mark, it is called back, as the game attempts to balance unpredictability with fairness.
It means umpires have to execute the skill even more perfectly than in the past when no recalls were required, ruckmen weren't nominated and any player could contest the ball where it landed.
Just look below at some of the bounces from the past, from the 1975 and 1986 grand finals.
Tradition? What tradition?
Apart from all the rule changes, it's also worth noting that the tradition so fiercely protected to start a grand final has not occurred in two of the past 38 deciders.
In 1987, a free kick was paid to Carlton's Wayne Johnston before umpire Ian Robinson even had a chance to bounce the ball as five Hawthorn players stood in the square.
It's not clear why Johnston, rather than the Carlton ruckman, was awarded the kick, but no one blinked an eye.
In 2023, an errant bounce was recalled, taking two seconds off the clock in the Collingwood v Brisbane Lions decider before umpire Simon Meredith threw it up for Mason Cox and Oscar McInerney. When a bounce is recalled, the clock does not reset, losing the time taken.
That famous grand final that Collingwood won by four points was defined by a centre clearance goal in which Magpies star Jordan De Goey kicked to regain the lead with less than six minutes remaining. The ball was thrown up because of a 6-6-6 position warning.
That moment of uncertainty was removed in a climactic end to a great grand final and could be again if a bounce was recalled. Yet, the sky didn't fall in.es remaining. The ball was thrown up because of a 6-6-6 position warning.
Three of the final four centre bounce situations were ball-ups in the final six minutes, two due to 6-6-6 warnings and one due to a recall (which took two seconds off in the final five minutes).
The AFL changed the rule at the start of this season so that umpires bounce the ball after issuing a 6-6-6 warning (as happened just before three-quarter-time time on Thursday night).
It's time for a decision on the bounce
The rule changes around the centre bounces make you wonder what is being protected. In 2025, it has degenerated into a wrestling match between ruckmen, since the AFL last year enabled straight-arm blocks providing the ruck involved was contesting the ball. It is no longer exciting to watch.
Lawmakers were trying to avoid such wrestling when they introduced the centre circle across the line in 1980, following the ugly rucking spectacle that marred the 1979 preliminary final when Collingwood's Peter Moore and North Melbourne's Gary Dempsey wrestled like two pythons throughout the match.
For half a century the game achieved that objective until a 2024 rule change was introduced for reasons unknown.
'It's gone back to Dempsey-Moore,' Madden said, adding he would remove the line across the centre, and debate the size of the circle, to reconfigure the contest. 'Everyone would have to move to the ball.'
He doesn't think anyone would notice if the bounce was scrapped.
Although the reason for the next major change was sound, the rot set in when the AFL limited the ruckman's run-up to 10m in 2005 to protect them against posterior cruciate ligament injuries which occurred when knee hit knee.
Four years later, the chaotic element was minimised again when umpires were empowered to recall an errant bounce at a stoppage and replace it with a throw-up. It followed controversy when North Melbourne midfielder Adam Simpson was gifted a centre clearance in 2008 that led to a vital goal against Collingwood in round seven that season.
That decision started the decline of the centre bounce into the relic it is now.
A senior club official argued that the game should be wary of yielding to coaches' need for certainty in an era when fans crave the uncertainty sport provides. The bounce, he argued, should be retained on that basis.
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But what we have is a facade of the centre bounce.
Another real debate is needed.
Scrap it forever in the interests of fairness, protecting umpires' backs and Hardwick and his ilk, or return it to the wonderful random tradition it once was by removing the recall.
Incoming football operations boss Greg Swann needs to convince the AFL Commission to back the bounce or sack it. If they sacked what we have now, in less than a season, no one would miss it.