The incidents that led to Hawthorn's Jordan Lewis and Adelaide's Patrick Dangerfield (pictured, above, in a neck brace) being stretchered off grounds last weekend were terrifying. Both were adjudged by the AFL's review process to have occurred within the reasonable run of play. Both had the potential to cause crippling injury or worse. Football can no longer stand by and wait for such an outcome to occur. It is time for the AFL football managers to do something more than "review the data".

What we are witnessing is a game that has gathered too much momentum for its own good. The combination of a populist approach to umpiring, and a player-interchange system that has spiralled out of control, have caused over-heating.

The umpiring issue has evolved before our eyes since the 1990s. The matter of how umpires are coached to interpret the game has long been either neglected, employed to create faster football, or both, by the AFL. For a time during the first decade of the new century, the average number of free kicks awarded per game fell as low as the mid-20s. Free kicks were no longer routinely paid for many of the game's fundamental tackling breaches.

The Dangerfield incident at the MCG on Sunday is an instructive example. Three Melbourne players, tackling from behind, pitchforked the Adelaide youngster head first into the turf, yet umpire Jason Armstrong saw no push-in-the-back. Significantly, neither did the television commentators. Nor did the AFL umpiring department which continues to insist Dangerfield was dragged down by the arms. Nor, even, did the Adelaide Football Club question the umpiring decision. Everyone is so inured to this form of gang-tackling that its employment is unquestioned.

Permissive umpiring generates faster football. It allows players to attack contests, and opposition players, with lesser regard for the likelihood of causing an infringement. When the former tough men of the game, now in the media boxes, jump furiously on "soft" decisions, the liberalisation of umpiring is taken up another notch. And the game just keeps getting faster.

The perpetual rotation of the interchange benches is an even greater facilitator of this. The potential for teams to increase their performance intensity by ensuring periodic breaks for all players emerged clearly in 2007. Of all the advances ever achieved in football performance, this one has possibly had the greatest impact.

But where other codes, like basketball and rugby league, insist that changes be notified only during breaks in play, in the AFL anything goes. No matter that this excludes those who pay to watch the game, as they can't possibly stay abreast of who's on the ground, who's off, and who's on whom. No matter that ball-carriers can be run down by "invisible" opponents who a moment ago weren't there, or that "new" targets can suddenly appear for players kicking towards the interchange area. The AFL continues to give coaches carte blanche to exploit the interchange system.

Now, though, the question must be confronted as to whether too much speed is dangerous. The bullet must be bitten and aerobic attrition restored as a factor in how games of football are shaped. The application of the game's laws should be re-thought. Something must be done to make the workplace safer. If it's not, one day someone's going to get hurt.