North Melbourne great David King has pleaded for all 18 AFL coaches to embrace the open brand of football that was showcased throughout Round 1.
Speaking on SEN’s Whateley, King doesn’t want to see coaches revert to flooding tactics that would take the game back to a “defensive gridlock”.
The dual All-Australian says AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan should order every senior coach to not push numbers behind the ball via a Monday phone call.
“We’re absolutely thrilled with where we are today,” King said.
“Gill McLachlan should ring every coach today (Monday) and say, ‘Hey, we’ve gone through enormous turmoil to get this point – do not be the coach that starts flooding behind the ball, slow the game down and take the game back to where we were’.
“In a meaningless way it might get you four points, it might get you 12-13 wins for the year, but you know what? It’s not going to help the product.
“Right now our game is entertainment, the weekend was so entertaining. I just hope the coaches don’t say, ‘We’ve lost control here, we have to start flooding back’.
“That phone call needs to be made.
“To watch what Essendon did to Hawthorn in the second quarter and then to see what Hawthorn did to Essendon in the third quarter you think, ‘This is what we want’.
“Please, please don’t take us back to that defensive gridlock that we’ve had for years.”
Two of the AFL's major rule changes to guard against congestion and increase scoring - 75 interchange rotations and the 'stand' rule - were on show in the opening round of the 2021 season.
