Richmond champion Joel Bowden caused a stir in a match against Essendon in 2008.
Bowden deliberately rushed two behinds while taking a kick out to milk the clock, with the Tigers holding a six-point lead deep into the last quarter.
Richmond won the match by four points, but Bowden’s tactics were heavily criticised at the time.
“It would be wrong of me not to give credit to the backline group that I was playing with at that stage,” Bowden told SEN’s This Is Your Sporting Life thanks to Tobin Brothers Funerals
“We actually practised it a couple of times.
“We (backline group) had a chat about it, and we thought, ‘Here’s an idea’.
“From there (back pocket) you walk up, and you get in front of the post if you’re hemmed all the way back, someone will stand behind the goals, quite simply, all you do is run and handball it to them through the goals.
“They get to then run to the top of the (goal) square … we’ve opened up the entire oval because we’ve conceded a point.
“Matthew Knights, who is a good friend of mine, he was the coach of Essendon at the time and his response after the game was, ‘I know Joel, he’s a smart guy, he figured it out. That’s in the rules, move on’.”
In the 2008 Grand Final, Hawthorn rushed 11 behinds in their 26-point victory over Geelong.
The rule has since been tinkered where a free kick can now be paid if a player deliberately rushes a behind unless under extreme pressure.