The winning coach reckons the AFL’s new sliding law is okay. The losing coach isn’t so certain.
But both Essendon coach James Hird and his Adelaide counterpart Brenton Sanderson say it will take players time to adjust to a law change which is changing a fabric of the game.
The rule penalising players who slide into an opponent’s legs was prevalent as Essendon won the season-opener in Adelaide on Friday night by 35 points.
Sanderson says his Crows players battled to adjust to being “guinea pigs” for the new rule.
Adelaide defender Brent Reilly conceded a goal from the law change: despite collecting the ball with a slide, he was penalised for also collecting the legs of Essendon’s Alwyn Davey.
Sanderson said Reilly wouldn’t have been penalised last year in the incident.
“It’s a tricky one because it looked like Radar (Reilly) was going for the ball,” he said.
“The interpretation of the new rule is that is now a free kick but we get penalised with a goal against.
“We will have to have a look at that and show the players.
“I guess everyone now across the competition gets a first look at the guinea pigs – Essendon and the Crows will be the benchmark now for what that rule is.
“And it will be scrutinised pretty heavily throughout the media this week.”
Sanderson said it was impossible to change the instinct of players to dive to win possession of ground balls.
“You can’t change instinct, you have to teach better method,” he said.
Bombers coach James Hird believed the new rule was well handled by players and umpires.
“We spent a bit of time since our last NAB Cup game against GWS practising some things, not to get a free kick, but to avoid a free kick – the way we tackle, the way we go for the ball and that has certainly helped us,” Hird said.
“It will take a while for players to get used to it and also for umpires to get used to it.
“I thought it was handled very well by the players and the umpires but that is probably a biased point of view because we won.”