Recent bounce in momentum a rule revelation

Too often, we've seen faster, higher-scoring early-season football revert back to depressing, overly-defensive drudge only a few weeks later.

Yet another reason "going the early crow" in the AFL is particularly dangerous.

But it does look like one of several AFL rule tweaks designed to get things moving again really is starting to have an impact.

And with the 6-6-6 centre bounce rule, it's certainly a case of better late than never.

This is actually the fourth year of the rule which forces teams to maintain six players in each section of the ground at every centre bounce.

Overall, it hasn't had anything like the impact desired in freeing the game up and increasing scoring.

Well, until now.

It's not the overall volume of scores so much, which (from a very small sample size) are back to around 2017 levels.

But the way those scores are coming certainly seems more dynamic, with an increased premium on scoring momentum.

Last weekend offered numerous examples of teams getting on a roll and effectively making hay while the sun shone.

On Saturday night, Collingwood slammed on seven unanswered goals from just 11 inside 50s against Geelong. Not to be outdone, the Cats promptly kicked eight without reply to win the game.

At the MCG on Sunday, Carlton rattled on seven in a row but Hawthorn hit back with half-a-dozen of their own.

But even those efforts were surpassed at Marvel Stadium, where St Kilda, after being 25 points down, booted 10 unanswered goals against a helpless Richmond.

It wasn't just round three, though.

In 27 AFL games played thus far this season, there's been no fewer than 14 occasions in which teams have slammed on bursts of at least six unanswered goals, sometimes in the same game.

Key forwards particularly seem to be lapping up the change in circumstance. Jeremy Cameron was on fire for Geelong in that final-term comeback against Collingwood, booting three as the Cats rattled on seven.

And on Sunday, St Kilda's Max King, for a second week in a row, took hold of and swung the course of a game with a burst of goals, responsible for four of the Saints' bag of seven in the last term.

Like a lot of these trends, the numbers don't effectively scream change in the air as loudly as have our simple powers of observation.

Champion Data figures tell us that there's not significantly more runs of unanswered goals being kicked now than previously.

We are, though, seeing those strings of goals scored more quickly. And on that basis, 6-6-6 has certainly played its part.

Obviously, it's a lot harder now for teams who are conceding a few goals to stem the bleeding, no longer allowed to drop a spare defender or two in the back 50 for five minutes or so until some equilibrium has been restored.

You'd think, defensive mechanisms in the game having improved out of sight in the modern era, that come a fourth season of the centre bounce rule teams would be coping with defending a centre bounce better.

Maybe, however, it's a function of the penny finally dropping for some.

That is, regardless of how well you defend, you need to score to win, and with more space around the football at a fresh centre bounce than any other time in the game, it's the perfect opportunity to strike while the iron is hot.

There may never be a better example of how dramatically momentum can swing a game than Melbourne's pyrotechnics in last year's grand final; the Demons going from 19 points down to a match-winning four-goal lead come the third-quarter siren against the Western Bulldogs.

Four of those came directly from centre bounce clearances, and so rapidly did the turnaround unfold that the Demons booted the last three of the term with under 50 seconds of playing time left on the clock.

It was hard to see how, given the way the modern game is played, that would ever be anything other than a rarity.

But perhaps (fingers crossed) the start to the subsequent AFL season is telling us that the scoring burst engineered directly from the bounce might be a more frequent part of AFL football now.

If that is the case, we should spare a moment to give kudos where it is due, and that would be to the lawmakers who introduced the 6-6-6 rule for the start of the 2019 AFL season.

We've had a lot of tinkering for not much reward over recent years when it's come to initiatives to open the game up, but this one looks like it might have hit on something.

Anyone who's watched some of the spectacular shifts of momentum in AFL football over just three rounds this new season would surely be grateful.