VERY few players can dominate Australian football to the point the laws of the game change. Hawthorn record-breaking spearhead Peter Hudson in 1973, with the diamond that preceded the centre square, is one.
And even fewer have a rule change named after them.
It has taken 20 years to strike down "The Primus Rule". In 2003, supposedly on the prodding of then AFL chief executive Wayne Jackson, the Laws of the Game committee rewrote the rule book with then Port Adelaide coach Mark Williams protesting: "I know for a fact they have changed the rules because of Matthew Primus.
"There's no doubt about it," Williams added. "They don't like the strong, pushing ruckmen. They want to have jumping ruckmen."
Be it fact as Williams declared or folklore, the story begins in late May 2001 when then AFL chief executive Wayne Jackson, after an accident on his farm in South Australia's South-East, watched from his hospital bed how Primus had physically tormented an opponent in a Sunday afternoon match being shown on television from Football Park.
Williams tumbled onto the impending rule change soon after at a coaches conference where the umpires brought edited video clips of Primus using brute force at ruck contests. They said, recalled Williams, "we need to get this out of the game".
The rule - the Primus rule - is now gone. But there are still ruckmen who were grateful it was written during the 2002-2003 off-season to give them a chance against Primus. How imposing was he?
"He was a bit too good for me, to be honest ... I can't remember beating him," says former Adelaide and Hawthorn ruckman Shaun Rehn who had Port Adelaide influence his long story in football at the start and end.
"Matthew Primus and Brendon Lade ..."
Sadly, it was a knee injury - just as Port Adelaide was on the verge of the breakthrough 2004 AFL premiership - rather than a rule change that blunted Primus' influence as a ruckman before his retirement in 2005 after 137 senior games at Alberton.
"He gave me a few touch-ups, body on body stuff," recalls Rehn, who was destined to play for Port Adelaide until he was traded to SANFL rival West Adelaide. "I think there was only one game when I might have done enough, maybe more than enough to break even. That was for Hawthorn in a final when Paul Salmon told me to get inside Primus' arm and to fight and scrap. It just turned into a wrestle ..."
Just what the AFL was seeking to eliminate after Primus had twice earned All-Australian honours (2001 and 2002) with his phenomenal strength in ruck contests.
"He was so bloody strong when he just stood there commanding the space," adds Rehn who became a specialist ruck coach at Port Adelaide from 2012 (under Primus) and 2013 (with Ken Hinkley). "You had to get inside his wing span."
All easier said than done against a colossus who stood 197cm tall and weighed 109 kg and was claimed by Fitzroy at No.2 in the 1995 AFL national draft. A year later, Fitzroy was broke, forced into a merger with Brisbane and able to protect seven players from any poaching by rival AFL clubs.
But the new Lions left Primus on the table for Port Adelaide ... under agreement, as then Port Adelaide chief executive Brian Cunningham recently revealed, for a sponsorship deal with Port Adelaide patron Allan Scott through one of his transport arms.
"The game changed with Matthew Primus," notes Rehn. "And then it changed again when he did his knee injury, along with Adam Goodes and others. The AFL no longer wanted ruckmen taking their eyes off the ball to physically run into each other off a long run-up, banging their knees.
"So we were roped into the centre circle, able to take no more than three or four steps in our run-up. Dean Cox (at West Coast) had impeccable timing at centre bounces ... on the shorter run-up he was still able to watch the other ruckman and time his moves impeccably. Luke Darcy (at the Western Bulldogs) was the same.
"But, before all the rule change, it was Matthew Primus. He was exceptional, unstoppable. There was not much you could do to stop him. You could work all the angles, you could work up a head of steam ... and he would just block you. And it was the same at ball-ups around the ground and at boundary throw-ins.
After two decades, the AFL has removed the "Primus rule" with the result so far showing no significant concern for one ruckman dominating as Primus did before the 2003 season.
"It probably has not had the impact a lot of people thought (the rule change) would have leading into the season ," says Port Adelaide midfield coach Josh Carr. "That big ruckman is not absolutely dominating as Matthew Primus did years ago by sticking his massive hand out. Ruckman can still jump and use the right aggression they can still find an edge.
"The good thing about the rule change is it brings in a bit of craft with ruck work as we had years ago. The jumping ruckmen will still jump and will still get a look at it if they do it with the right method. But you can still get those smart ruckmen who use their body and time it in the right way."
