(Les Zigomanis is a freelance journalist and BPL contributor.)

You've got to love the AFL.  Not the competition, in this case.  But the governing body.  Really, you do.  You've got to love them.

Another rule change lurks.  Ruck contests.  That's the newest blemish in the game, apparently.  The AFL don't like ruckmen wrestling.  So, no more.  Let's have a basketball tip-off.  No, wait.  Let's disallow contact.  Let's make ruckmen contest the ruck without any physical interaction between one another.

Already, former players have complained.  Both Simon Madden and Clarke Keating have asked what happens once one ruckman gets prime position?  What's the opponent's alternative?  He can't jostle his way into better position.  He'll just have to come jumping in from the side.

But let's ignore one of the greatest ruckman of the modern era, as well as a triple premiership ruckman not long out of the game.  Why listen to players, after all?  What do they know?  Forget them.  Much easier to make decisions on the aesthetics of the game from a cushy office, rather than from any practical experience, or based on any real informed opinion.

The AFL's all (well, allegedly) for the preservation of the players, but consider what this new proposed rule will do for ruckman.  If they can't tussle, they'll be required to jump for every contest - not just centre-bounces, but ball-ups around the ground (where they often wrestled) and throw-ins. 

The best bet for clubs will be to find the tallest ruckman available.  Physical strength is irrelevant now.  Just height.  And more height.  So, already, the proposed change advantages certain player types, whilst making others obsolete.  More than that, it'll influence drafting, as well as the evolution of rucking.  Time to raid the basketball leagues.

As it is, the sub rule has almost eliminated the second specialist ruckman in teams.  The exceptions are clubs like West Coast, who have a young, athletic second ruck.  But most go for the template pioneered by Collingwood - the Leigh Brown model of a tall utility who can play as a slightly undersized relief ruckman.

That template now already becomes an endangered model.  Because of his height deficiency, the utility thrived on body-work in an attempt to equalise the contest.  He'll have to jump now to compete.  But he's completely out-sized.  So the specialist ruck will have to shoulder more of the burden.

Otherwise, a team could select two specialist rucks, which now leaves them short a runner.  That alleviates the ruckman's burden, but increases the workload of the midfielders, since now they'll be short one rotation on the bench.

Whichever way you cut it, let's ignore that more wear and tear doesn't promote longevity.  Already, by the end of games, you see players out on their feet.  But let's bandy a rule which'll prohibit ruckman from wrestling it out for position when they're exhausted and demand they leap for the tap.  That's what they need.  Push them.  To breaking point.  Until they break.

The AFL is an amazing entity when they consider rule changes.  They take incidents and study them in isolation.  Unfortunately, the mechanics of football don't function in isolation.  The AFL doesn't consider that every action has a reaction and, in football, every occurrence has repercussions which ripple throughout matches and the structures and the demands on teams.

The ruck rule is just being trialled.  But you wonder if the AFL will heed the critics - particularly those better-credentialed than myself.

And them.

Then again, why buck tradition now?