The two rule changes Malcolm Blight wants to see to further ease congestion in games

Australian football Legend Malcolm Blight is concerned about the level of congestion creeping back into the game.

The AFL worked hard to ‘free the Sherrin’ in recent years, introducing the 6-6-6 rule after goals, the Stand rule and tweaking kick outs.

However, Blight believes there are too many stoppages in big games and has outlined two further rule changes he would make in order to help solve it.

“I read somewhere that the Showdown had 82 stoppages and Collingwood/Carlton had 77 stoppages. Is that the game we really want to see in perfect conditions?” Blight asked on SEN SA’s Sportsday.

“One of the things is, I reckon this is going to happen, the injuries are starting to mount and I know some are purely accidental, and concussions and all sorts of stuff are going on, I reckon we’ve got to reduce that congestion and I think there’s two ways we can do it.

“The first one I’ve talked about before and I reckon it’s fallen on deaf ears a bit. After a point is scored, there must be six players over the halfway line. Six players back behind the centre square. Three from each side.

“It’ll give players a bit more opportunity and what made me think of it, Adelaide got those early goals which really set up the win, it was almost like Pagan’s Paddock with the room behind them to run into open goals.

“The other thing is they’ve got to start reducing the rotations and I’d go from 75 down to 40. Just make it a bit more tiring so they can’t quite get up and down the ground as quickly.

“Otherwise, it’s going to be chaos. Injuries will mount and the game will keep getting squeezed.”