POWER coach Mark Williams has revealed he asked the AFL to consider delaying the introduction of the new interchange rule to give the clubs more time to practice changes to the system.
Williams, who was outspoken on the AFL's head-high contact rule during the week, used the ensuing conversation with the league's football operations manager Adrian Anderson to broach the topic of the new interchange rule, which comes into effect this round.
“When I spoke to Adrian last night [Thursday night], I said that maybe if we had one more trial week of the interchange rule that we might get it a bit better and there would be less interruption to the game as we know it,” Williams said.
“But the AFL has looked at it closely and that’s their go, so we’ll see how it goes.
Williams said he expected the changes to cause more confusion this weekend.
“We spent time down in Tassie talking about it and we got it wrong once. We spent a little bit of time on it today, and hopefully we don’t get it wrong at all tomorrow,” he said.
“But it’s an emotional game and players have been playing a certain way for many, many years and to have to change that within one week - I can’t guarantee we won’t get it wrong and I’m sure Roosy [Sydney Swans coach Paul Roos] can’t either.
“Having put the changes in place last week, the results would say it didn’t work because there were actually more recorded people on the ground than the one time that [Swans player] Jesse White was on the ground [against North Melbourne].
“We’re thinking that there will have to be a new column in the statistics because if the goals don’t come from centre bounce or from kick-ins and they come from interchange [how do we record that?].
“Interchange goals - that would be a strange one, wouldn’t it?”
It was a more jovial Williams that fronted the media on Friday in comparison to the angry figure that demanded an inquiry into Shaun Burgoyne’s three-game suspension earlier in the week.
The premiership coach is not expected to be fined over the emotional outburst, but he did say the AFL were “interested” to hear his point of view.
“I sent e-mail to quite a few people yesterday, including Sheeds [Kevin Sheedy] and Neale Daniher at the coaches association, to explain and ask for support there,” he said.
“I also sent one to [AFL chief executive] Andrew Demetriou, Adrian Anderson and Mike Fitzpatrick because I thought it was important for him, as the leader of football, to know exactly what I was talking about.
“Adrian rang me back yesterday and we spent some time on the phone and Adrian is very happy to have a discussion with me.
“He’s fully aware that in my time, I’ve helped with the head over the ball rule, the kicking across goal rule, I’ve been involved with the Dream Team and he knows that my intention is to make the game better.”
