AFL announces seven rule changes to ‘enhance the flow’; Harley maintains party line on Tasmania stadium

The AFL wants seven rule changes introduced for the 2026 season to shave three minutes off game time as the league’s new football manager Greg Swann took the bold step of introducing a last-touch rule into the game.

Among the changes, players will be forced to dispose of the ball more quickly after a mark or free kick and play will be restarted without the need for a ruck to nominate their intent to contest a ball-up.

The most radical move, however, is the introduction of a last-touch rule which means a free kick will be awarded against a team which has the last disposal out of bounds in between the 50-metre arcs. It will remove the need for umpires to adjudicate whether a player made sufficient intent to keep the ball in play.

Swann, the league’s executive general manager football performance, said most of the changes were designed to speed up the game or stop time-wasting.

“The game has got longer, but the actual playing time has got less,” Swann said.

As well as awarding a free kick for last disposal out of bounds in between the 50-metre arcs, the league wants umpires to deem a shrug in a tackle as prior opportunity as the action is the same as attempts to evade or fend off the tackler, and cut the “reasonable time” a player is allowed to dispose of the ball from a free kick or mark around the ground from 12 seconds to eight seconds.

Interpreting the shrug as prior opportunity is expected to have an impact on small forwards who either seek a free kick for head-high contact or create a stoppage when they shrug while being tackled.

Swann said the purpose of the rule was to reduce the incentive for players to stage for free kicks.

“You take cues from players themselves and when they tackle someone and [their opponent does] that then the opposition gets pretty irate. No one likes that,” Swann said.

AFL Media revealed AFL research showed the last-touch rule would reduce boundary throw-ins by three per game with 3.5 last-touch free kicks on average being paid per game in 2025 if the rule had been in place, an increase from the 0.5 insufficient intent free kicks paid per game this season.

They will also restart play without a nominated ruck present and ruckmen competing a centre bounce cannot cross the centre circle line and engage with the opposition ruck before contesting the ball.

The third man up remains in play, but umpires will be instructed to not wait for players who nominate as the ruck to arrive at the contest.

The variation that the centre bounce previously provided will disappear in 2026 as umpires will now throw the ball up at all times, a move the league announced earlier this month.

The AFL showed that a ruckman jumped at only 21 per cent of centre bounces in 2025, down from 63 per cent in 2023.

Swann said the league assessed the likelihood of PCL injuries increasing as a result of the rule change, but said the circle limiting the length of a ruckman’s run-up reduced the danger of a spike in PCL injuries.

“They are not going to be running too far, but, obviously, we will monitor it,” Swann said.

In other changes, at least one player from each team will not have to start in the goal square at each centre ball-up, but there will still be six players from each team required inside the 50-metre arc at a centre ball-up.

The change is designed to save time as players were sometimes tardy in reaching the goal square.

A player must also stand if they are within the protected area (within five metres) when a mark or free kick is paid.

Swann said the league gave no consideration to eliminating the stand rule altogether, saying standing on the mark was part of the game. It was just a matter of ensuring it was enforced properly.

“We will go back to what we think the original intent [of the rule] was,” Swann said.

League holds firm despite warning from Tasmanian politicians

A delegation of Tasmanian MPs opposing a stadium planned for Macquarie Point in Hobart failed to change the AFL’s no-stadium-no team stance at a meeting with AFL executives on Wednesday.

However, they vowed to continue the fight against the stadium, even if the order required to greenlight construction of the controversial proposal passes through the state’s parliament in December.

Independent MPs Peter George and Kristie Johnson and Greens representatives Vica Bayley and Cassy O’Connor told newly appointed AFL chief operating officer Tom Harley the AFL would suffer significant damage to its brand if it pushed ahead with the agreement struck with the Tasmanian Government in May 2023.

Bayley said they asked the AFL to renegotiate their position on the stadium, arguing the existing stadia at Bellerive and Launceston were good enough to be the home grounds for the Tassie Devils.

He said growing community sentiment and the recent Tasmanian Planning Commission report which recommended against the stadium being built were good enough reasons for the AFL to reconsider its position. The four MPs said they believed the Tassie Devils should be given the licence, but a new stadium was unnecessary and unwelcome.

“One thing Tasmanians don’t like is corporations riding roughshod over community interests. We have a budget crisis, we’ve got spiralling debt, we’ve got a whole raft of issues, and we also have two existing stadiums where AFL is being played,” Bayley said.

“[The team] should play in the national competition. It should play in the existing stadiums.

“We think the Devils can work without this stadium. In fact, we think this stadium will have a long-term [negative] impact on the Devils’ success and indeed the branding of the AFL.”

The AFL put out a statement following the meeting, reiterating that its position had not changed.

“The AFL’s continued position is a clear component of the licence bid from the Tasmanian taskforce was a new roofed stadium at Macquarie Point with a capacity of at least 23,000. It is a condition for the grant of the 19th licence and that position has not changed. The AFL look forward to the vote on the stadium in the coming weeks and the state continuing to build on the momentum and progress already made by the Tasmania Devils and their 214,000 members.”

Bayley conceded that, even if the order went through both houses of parliament, they would remain opposed to the stadium. He said they explained some of the challenges the AFL would face at the site if they continued despite opinion being divided on whether a stadium was required.

“Tasmanians have time and time again stood up against the toxic projects that are seen to pervert proper process,” Bayley said.

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