Legitimately think this might be the harshest rule that we've covered on the show. Like, this feels as though someone woke up grumpy and just wanted to be a jerk. Y'all got anything you think is worse?
Also, Speaking of the Bulldogs. A rewinder on their 2016 grand final win (our superbowl) wouldn't be too bad. One the greatest Australian sports stories ever.
Great video. It rarely happens though. I've only seen it once in the AFL. West Coast vs St Kilda 1999 last game of the regular season if I remember correctly.
I think that this mostly has the feel of: "How do we make sure, that there aren't more than 18 per team on the field?" - "Dunno, hard to count them, they move!" - "Let's just make a rule so harsh we never conceivably have to expect anyone to break it."
In reality this rule is all but obsolete. In professional and semi-professional competitions teams do sometimes get 19 players on field for a few seconds because of mistakes at interchange, but instead of head-count usually one of the umpires will call an "Interchange Breach". The team that made the infringement will give up possession, and concede 50 metres. Or in other words, the opposition player receives a free kick, after walking 50 metres forward uncontested from where the ball is when the infringement is found. Headcounts are more common in junior competitions (but still rare), but generally the penalty isn't usually wiping out the score completely. They might get a goal taken off, or have the same penalty as interchange breach (it differs based on each specific league)
Not true my man. It's rare but last year North Adelaide in the SANFL they had 19 men on the field for a minute or two. They managed to get their player off before a head count could be called. It was a huuuuuge deal in South Australia. They won that game, then the next weekend won the grand final.
Correct. It's exceedingly rare because more than likely the breach will be called before the opposition captain calls for a count. And there's significant penalties for calling a count that turns out to be wrong (ie: both sides actually do have the correct number of players). So you need to be bloody sure that you're right before calling for a headcount, AND do it before the opposition notices their mistake and corrects it.
I remember this happened with my local teams reserves in the grand final I think or a prelim, the opposition had 19 the whole match and were up by 60 but the coach from my local team told the ump and they’re score got wiped and my local team went on to win it all
As an Aussie, saw the headline, had a laugh. Watched the video, didn’t do too bad a job! Just for those unaware though, in the professional Aussie Rules league (The AFL) this rule is not applied and it’s just a free kick, but it is still a thing in all lower league competitions in the country.
I have a question as an American interested in Aussie Rules Football. I checked the rule book and noticed that the AFL changed the rule for the 2019 season specifically Law 5.5.3(c). The 2018 rules stated that "the Team shall lose all points which it has scored in the Match up to the time of the count." Now in 2019 the rule was changed to"the Team shall lose all points which it has scored *in that quarter* up to the time of the count" and informing the AFL who can review and ultimately decide whether they want to change the result or not. I just want to know why did the AFL make this rule change.
@@DoragonRider75 One thing you'll find out quickly is that the AFL is run by a bunch of flogs, so they probably changed this irrelevant rule just because they could. I think it makes more sense but there's no point of it since its never put into practice.
AFAIK it's still a rule, but it's very very rare because before the captain calls for a headcount, it would likely be picked up as an interchange breach, or the opposition fixes the count.
@@DoragonRider75 There were a couple controversies regarding this rule in lower State League competitions (think of it as the Aussie Rules equivalent of the Minor Leagues). They changed the rule to update it to the 21st Century where this kind of think would only happen by accident. This rule was likely written more than 100 years ago, before professional footy and where cheating would of been more common as it was easier to get away with.
Another funny example of the 19 man rule was in the regional country league in Victoria, one team was winning by about 100 points with 8 minutes to go in the 4th quarter when the losing team called a head count, and it was revealed that the winning team accidentally had 19 men on the field, so their 100 point lead was reduced to a 25 point defecit. In the ensuing chaos of this 120 point turnaround, a member of the team that was previously losing ran onto the field to taunt the opposition, who called for ANOTHER head count, it was found that THAT team now had 19 on the field, and their score was also erased. Complete and utter madness.
It’s hard to actually do this, as the interchange is heavily monitored now a days. A mistake on interchange results in a fine, such as players crossing the interchange line before the sub has left the field. Also, a 19th person can make a difference in an AFL game, as players are matched to an opponent and generally have to defend that player. So if there’s an extra player, they could easily sneak towards the goals without being defended.
Ashlea Withers This happened in the league a few years ago, and I’m fairly sure they just gave a 50m penalty, it created a media stir for a week and then we forgot about it. I’m sure this whole story of a head count happened in the 70s but it doesn’t happen anymore.
I have no idea how these mopes don't think having more players on the field is cheating. Obviously they are 'guys' who think playong sports is sitting on the couch with an xbox controller...
@@biasedconfirmations many sports an extra player on the field for a minute or 2 could possibly not even effect the game in a meaningful matter, although in afl an extra player for that period of time would likely cause a goal to be scored.
There was a more recent incident around this in September 2018. In the SANFL Semi-Finals, North Adelaide was discovered to have had 19 players on the field for about 5 minutes - during this time scoring 8 points, going on to win by 5 points. The player count wasn't done, because only the captain can call for the count and the extra player was off by the time it was noticed. Woodville-West Torrens (They merged) protested the result, but rather than overturn the result the SANFL opted to let North Adelaide play in the Final the following week - which they went on to win, fine them $10,000 and start the 2019 Season on -2 wins
Your One Black Friend Who Gave you the N Word Pass In the SANFL you get 2 premiership points for a win, 1 point for a draw (rare) and 0 points for a loss. North Adelaide started the next season on -4 points.
@@DaDualityofMan it was a 4 premiership point penalty handed to North for the 2019 season (a win is 2 points in the SANFL). As North have only won 1 game so far this season, they're still on -2 points for the season!
Just a note, players do know the exact score, and as far as i know they they've always been able to. There are large scoreboards at every stadium and even at local grounds. But correct regarding the time. The clock actually counts up, similar to soccer, with time added for stoppages. So a quarter is 20mins plus stoppage time, but they don't advertise to the players how much time is being added. If you're watching on tv you can see the countdown clock though, so coaches and bench players always know and make the players on the field aware exactly how long is left.
This happened last year!!!! It's rare but last year North Adelaide in the SANFL they had 19 men on the field for a minute or two. They managed to get their player off before a head count could be called. It was a huuuuuge deal in South Australia including a hearing with an ex-supreme court judge to decide whether they could play next week or have the result overturned. They won that game, then the next weekend won the grand final.
You mentioned Mario Party and losing everything, so allow me to point out that in Mario Party DS on Bowser's Pinball Machine, there is a string of 5 spaces *in a row* that if you land on them you lose all of your Coins AND all of your Stars. They are by far the most brutal spaces in any Mario Party game. I've seen it happen with people that had like 10 stars (DS is a very high-scoring game).
A rule about as harsh is the rule in golf where if you don’t sign your score card you points are taken away. It’s like you never played the game at all.
SB Nation actually has a video where they explain a golf incident where a golfer unknowingly committed a penalty by using a towel or blanket to keep his pants clean, and he didn't record it in his score card, which invalidated his score. It was as if he never even showed up.
I forget what golf tournament this was. Player played as normal. One spectator watching the tournament noticed on some hole that the player had teed of few cm before the spot where you supposed to tee off (between those two balls). Player was disqualified from the tournament.
Craziest story o this was in the SANFL last year, preliminary final to make the grand final and North Adelaide made a 40+ point comeback, but for a 5 minute period they had 19 on the field and scored around 7-10 points, which was the margin they won by. However after the game they had 2 games deducted from next seasons tally and a fine. They went in to win the Grand Final.
2:48 You're right about the remaining time left, only the timekeepers know. Makes for some tense play, not knowing if that last second play has enough time to work. Players can look up at the scoreboard though if they want to know the score. Love your idea of pushing an opposing player into play then calling for a headcount!
You guys did a pretty good job, with the exception of calling umpires referees and the players always know the score, but the game clock isn’t known to the second. Still super impressed!
You guys need to do the 2010 Grand Final rematch. It’s super weird, there was no rule for extra time in the grand final (effectively the Super Bowl for AFL), so in 2010, when there was a tie in the Grand Final, they played another game the next week to determine the premier (champion).
To sort of explain why a single extra player ends up being a big advantage and why it was (and still is in smaller local leagues) punished so heavily without going too in depth about it; If you get tackled with the ball it reverts to something similar to a 50/50 basketball tip off, so a lot of the ball movement relies upon getting a free player or outnumbering the opposition around the ball (2v1, 3v2 etc). Having just one single extra player, means you've always got a free option to pass to on attack while on defense be able to attack the player with the ball while covering all his options to pass to.
Aussie Rules made it onto weird rules! I was seriously hoping you guys might cover this one day. This has never happened in the top professional league, but that Norm Dare story is one of the best to come out of Aussie Rules. Sadly, the chaos of the headcount is highly unlikely to happen again at the top level because of the introduction of new interchange stewards a few years ago, so no more hiding under coats
I played in a game where this rule was invoked, junior football in Canberra in the late 1970s. About halfway through the second quarter, the umpire suddenly blew his whistle, called all players to the centre square and counted the opposition, coming up with 19. He didn't bother to count us but then told both teams that the oppositions score (they were behind at the time) would be reset to zero. The opposition looked stunned, no-one had tried to leave the pitch, so I think it was an honest mistake. I think none of us playing that day even knew of this rule and I have never seen it invoked since.
I was actually at this game your talking about as a West Adelaide supporter, it was the West Adelaide captain who makes the call to tell the umpire he wants a head count. It was chaotic as West Torrens players were fleeing off the ground in all directions to make it impossible to have the count. West Adelaide players were trying to stop them. At that stage of the game from memory, West Torrens were in front by a couple of goals, should have had their score wiped but went on to win easily as West Adelaide practically gave up. The rule book was thrown out of the window that day.
Hey sb nation. There's a lot of idiots in Australian media that cover the sport. There could be a market on your channel for Aussie rules football videos. Great video, please make more. You could do one on the line in the sand match
Just a small clarification about players not knowing the time remaining. There is a count-up clock at the ground. And most quarters go for roughly 28-32 minutes, so you know SORT OF how much time is left, but not exactly. There have been times when the big screen uses the direct TV screen with the official countdown clock in the corner, but I haven't seen that in a while. They either superimposed a black square or something over that corner, or nowadays, they use a completely different feed, controlled presumably by a different production crew than the TV broadcast. But the funny thing is that the coaches KNOW exactly how much time is remaining. So the bench knows how much time is remaining. I'll let you guess if they keep quiet about it if it's a tight game. It's a funny one where the TV audience knows the time remaining but the stadium audience does not. Personally I prefer the count-up clock as then it increases the tension. I hate/love it. As for score. Every ground in the country has a scoreboard, which everyone can see. Coaches might direct the players to ignore the scoreboard - ie: play your natural game regardless of the score - but there's usually no point to hiding the score from the players.
Just fyi: Referee is known as an umpire 'Time outs' don't exist in Aussie Rules This rule is basically obsolete Most times you can see the score but not the actual time left. Every time play stops the official game time also stops, but for some reason it's usually just shown to everyone as the the time for that quarter (period). Official game time per qtr is 20 min but the actual time is usually 25-30 min including stoppages.
Love the show guys! Sure I won't be the only one mentioning this, but England just beat New Zealand in the Cricket World Cup Final. However the match was tied in normal play and extra time 'superover', and NZ lost by 0, tiebreaker of most boundaries was used....i know cricket is a series of weird rules onto itself but this has got to be worth an episode given the circumstances in which it occurred
Big AFL fan here, loved the video. A suggestion for Rewinder might be the back to back Sydney Swans v West Coast Eagles grand finals, both decided by one score. Or the Kennent curse, where Hawthorn, after winning the 2008 grand final, lost 4 or 5 straight years worth of games to Geelong after their president said they'd "never be beaten by Geelong again."
Players are now allowed to know the score, also, the bench is highly monitored so this would let happen anymore haha. Would love to see an AFL rewind! Love this channel and am an avid Aussie Rules fan! We can all tell you games to rewind.
This happened in the NEAFL Grand Final in 2018. Southport were winning by a comfortable margin then in the final quarter a headcount was called and they were found to have 19 players on the field. The Swans, who called the headcount, decided they didn't want to win the grand final in that manner so they withdrew the headcount after it was completed and an interchange breach was instead called. Southport went on to win easily. I was playing in the game and it was chaos. Nobody on the field knew of the score had been wiped so it was only after the game that we found out that we had lost.
I feel like there's another whole side of this rule that isn't addressed at all in this video, which is, if your score was already zero, such as at the very start of the game, there's effectively no penalty for playing too many people on the field. Okay, first quarter? I send out 50 people on my side of the field. What are you gonna do? Make my score _more_ zero?
Plus at lower levels of competition, you might have a reserve grade player still in his playing gear looking for something they left on the bench during the reserve game while a senior game is going on. There’s plenty of leagues that take themselves pretty seriously, and might potentially apply this rule, but still don’t really take themselves seriously enough to restrict access to the bench. Volunteers and players from an earlier game, as well as fans or partners of players all tend to milk around the benches at suburban grounds and chat to their mates who are coaching or playing. It’s not an entirely easy 4 people to pick out and count at a moments notice.
Not exactly the case. Some players who get injured and go onto the bench will head down the race into the team rooms to get treated but the medical staff. Another case that comes to mind was when the GWS Giants played the Carlton Blues in 2018. The Giants had 4 players injured on the bench during the game so at some points it would look like the Giants had 6 players on the bench as they had players coming off to get a 1-2 minute break. But those players who were coming off didn't count as going onto the bench (interchanging) as they had no fit players on the bench. This meant the players were running on and off as they counted as on the field. So you had at points the Giants playing 16 players to Carltons 18 players. The result though would not be what you expected though, with the Giants winning by 104 points.
I wouldn’t even consider this to be harshest penalty in Australian sports. In the early 2000’s the North Queensland Cowboys in the NRL (National Rugby League) had one extra player (14 instead of 13) on the field for a period of time and was discovered after the game was over. As a result, the NRL stripped the win result that North Queensland got from the game itself.
Hey guys, the players can always see the score. You're kind of right about the clock - there's no countdown, the clock counts up. Quarters are 20 minutes long plus time on, so players know the quarter will usually go between 25-30 minutes depending on how many goals are kicked (which adds a little to time on since play stops and the game is restarted in the centre square). It's quite suspenseful for the crowd since we don't know when the siren will sound in a close game. Anyhow, great video! Love your stuff.
You should do a video on the CFL's rouge rule. It led to the single craziest play in football history on October 29, 2010 between Toronto and Montreal. In a single play from scrimmage, there was 1 field goal attempt, 3 punts (one of which was blocked) and a touchdown.
19 on a field is a huge advantage though; at least at the top level. It may not sound like much, but the way zones are set up and planned, having an extra man on the field is impossible to defend against as your resources are accounted for. I remember a game 10-15 years ago now between North Melbourne and Sydney where Sydney had 19 on the field at the end of the game. The ball ended up spilling to a free swans player who scored and drew the game. North weren't aware of it quick enough to call a head count, so that cost them the win. It is indeed always a mistake, but you need a tough penalty to keep it that way. Its kind of archaic too as IIRC, only the captain can call for a headcount; so the opposition interchange needs to notice it and communicate it to the captain who communicates it to an umpire, which all takes time. Also, you cant really push players onto the field like you suggest at the end lol. There is only one interchange gate, and the teams are separated either side of it.
I have actually been boundary umpire for a game where this happened. The role of a boundary umpire is to stop anyone from leaving the ground. But the game I was in, the team was up by about 50 points. Then the count happened early in the last quarter but because the opponents score was so low (about 3 goals), they almost won again.
Firstly, this penalty is absolutely deserved, one extra player, in AFL, is a HUGE advantage, because of how physical, demanding and tough the sport is, you can see a team go "one up" due to 5 players being injured from one side, which, while very rare, you just see how much of an advantage it gives the other team As for the rule it's self, it's very, very rare to see it done, there are common interchange infringements, but usually never a head count, you'll never see it in the top leagues (AFL, VFL, SANFL, WAFL, NEAFL, so on The only example of anything recent I can think of is in my local competition (Broken Hill AFL) where in a game between West and South (very imaginative names, I know) there was a head count, but the local league decided to rewrite that rule a little (perfectly in their powers I might add) to change it to lose all your points scored when that player was on, which I disagree with, but what am I supposed to do, I also remember that the infringing team (West) got away with it because they managed to sneak their extra player off the field Sadly I'm only relaying what someone told me, as I was at the other game (Central v North) because eff both South and West
This is pretty rare, in my experience it's always been drilled in my head not to run on the field until the person you're going on for has come off. Also the scores aren't hidden, but the times are, though sometimes in professional games it goes up on the big TVs briefly when it shows a replay.
I played in a game where this happened. It happened about 3 quarters of the way through the game - the other team lost all their points but... still beat us. School football for the win. Must be said, the players know the score all the time - not sure where you got the idea we don't from. We don't know how much time is left though - you're right about that - the clock counts up instead of down.
You can actually see the score - there's a scoreboard at the side in all levels (probably except kids leagues). You can also see the time as a player in the AFL, but the timer counts up at the actual game, starting at 0:00. When watching it on TV, it counts down from 20:00. Bit complicated, but on TV, the timer countdown will stop during stoppages, but at the ground, it continues up, and the time for stoppages is added. So for example, a 20 second stoppage would make the quarter 20:20, but unless you as a fan or player at the game knew that it was a 20 second stoppage, you wouldnt know when the quarter was due to end. On a side note I think the harshest penalty to be ever laid down was against Essendon for the "player supplement saga" during the 2012 season. They were found guilty, and the AFL forced Essendon out of the finals, fined them $2m, banned 34 players for 12 months, stripped the Essendon player that won the leagues Best and Fairest of his win, and banned them from the 1st two round draft picks for 2 years.
I would love to see these guys take a look at snooker's "foul and a miss" rule. Snooker is an unimaginably hard game to play well, especially when escaping snookers, and this rule basically means the referee calls a miss if the player didn't make a good enough attempt at escaping the snooker. This of course leads to many annoyed players missing shots by literal fractions of millimeters. (Keep in mind, snooker is an extremely British sport, so our version of "annoyed" is different to the Americans.) I would love seeing Americans tackle snooker.
There was an example in a lower league last year where this happened. A team played with 19 players for some time, and in that time, kicked more points than what the final margin was. The 19th player was removed before the head count to be enacted. It was in a semi-final (called a preliminary final in Australia) as well. It was decided by that league's tribunal that the result would stand, but that next season, that team would be docked four table points (the equivalent of winning one game).
I've never heard/seen the score be hidden at a top-flight AFL game Hiding the exact time of play remaining? Depends on the field, year, personal preference, the weather, availability of hot dogs...
Yeah I think they got confused on that point. Aussie Rules players know the score, but the clock on the scoreboard counts up instead of down and doesn't show added time so they don't know how long is left. BUT in the AFL, the TV coverage clock does count down and stop for breaks in play, so the team coaches can just monitor the TV coverage and signal their teams how much time is left. Complicated.
@@MightyRoys The teams have their own timekeepers. So there are actually four of them every game - one for each team, the ch7 one, and the official one, which is why the siren always goes a few seconds late according to the TV.
2:51 - In all seriousness, this is a fantastic element of the footy. Really good job I might stress as an obsessed footy fan. Also for a harsh rule, look at the England Pakistan Cricket Test in 2006 (unsubstantiated ball tampering)
I umpire local cricket, and in my second game, my colleague and I realised partway through the first innings that the fielding team had 12 players, not 11, and we had no idea how long that had been the case. Good thing there's no headcount rule in cricket, we'd have looked like total idiots..!
I'm an Aussie and I live and breath for this game, love SB Nation so I'm glad you covered some AFL ('footy'). Although, I've never seen this rule applied... You should cover this sport more often (and glad you apologised for knowing nothing about it haha), it's the 4th most popular league in the world as per average attendance (5th in aggregate), behind only NFL and German and English Premier Leagues
... Average attendance doesn't really count for much when the population of Australia is notably less than that of even just the state of Texas and the sport isn't played ANYWHERE else. 🤷
I’m genuinely surprised how well these fellas talked about footy, apart from the hiding the score. That made me cringe a little but good work regardless
It's much different because with the NFL you have more players and coaches on the sideline than you do on the field whereas you only have 4 on the bench in the afl so it's easy to keep track of how many you have on the field
ive played AFL (Australian rules football) for 10 years and that rule is actually taken very seriously , mainly for the fact i think like you said as in you wouldnt notice but for that exact reason i believe is WHY it is so important because it would be really easy to just slip an extra guy from the bench on the field. and in a game were a spare man is actually a huge thing like for those who dont play most set ups for most games are set on man on man positions like most sports so a spare man anywhere can be huge especially in division 1 sides and professional leagues. Also i remember once when i was playing that there was a pause in play because of an injury and our coach told us to come over to the sidelines and told the guys on the bench "woah don't go on the ground" becuase of this exact rule.
I'm wondering how well this would be enforced at the start of the game lol. Like at the start of the game, the score is 0-0, so what's to stop you from fielding 42 players, running your opponent into the ground, and then clearing out all but 18 of them in time for the first goal. At the same time, I kinda want to know how this rule came to be: Ref: "You guys have too many players on the field" "So? What're you gonna do about it, huh?" Ref: *grabs eraser and slowly walks towards a comically large chalkboard*...
If he was on a stretcher, does that mean he /technically/ wasn't /on/ the field? He was above the field, but by that logic you can call a head count as a plane flies over
Just a heads up, there is a scoreboard at every Aussie Rules game. So the score is not hidden from the players. But the clock is a count up clock so you are right when the players don't know how much longer is left. E.g the score could be: team A: 82 Team B: 77 With 2 mins left in the game, but read as 27:36 mins So the players know what they need to win, and although they may not know the exact time before the buzzer goes, they can see that its not far off given the high number. So it becomes a big scramble for the win.
When I learned about this rule a few days ago, I found a team that lost 89 POINTS because it had an extra man on a stretcher. (Ryan already knew about it, of course.)
Had this happen in final in local footy and the other team literally dragged player off to avoid being over the count because some of the players from their bench had run on to join in the punch on that was taking place. Umpire just said fine then and gave them a score of zero anyway.
To me the weirdest part of all about this rule is that the punishment can actually be incredibly light in the right circumstances. If a team hadn't scored yet then losing all your points will do literally nothing. If you were on defense and hadn't scored yet, it seems like there would be no downside to sending out a 19th man.
Great to see Aussie Rules getting a guernsey on this channel. And so many Aussies in comments. It is a harsh rule but in top league it’s not enforced. However, it can be a big advantage because it’s easy to get away with due to large teams and huge fields, and it’s a sport with no offside. Imagine basketball with 10 guys on an NFL field. Then double both the field and the player count. Getting a free man in open space is guaranteed points.
I think they need this rule in all sports to prevent delay of game when someone is injured. Then we will see medical teams at practice doing wind sprints so they can change injured players off the field faster. They can call it the NASCAR rule.
In 1999 West Coast coach Mick Malthouse called for a head count against St Kilda. I doubt Malthouse thought they had a extra player though. It was probably a tactic as St Kilda were beating West Coast badly. That's the only time I've seen it in the AFL.
I played in a game where we were 40 points down, one of the opposition's player was sent from the field for fighting. Then once play resumed, stormed back on the field to fight someone else, our captain called a headcount. They had 19 including the guy who was fighting. Their Score was wiped. Then their whole team went into the locker rooms and refused to come out.
Never see this rule payed but this year I saw a similar rule played. Each team only gets 75 interchanges per game (players coming on and off the field) North Melbourne was up by less than a goal when they did a 76th interchange. Play was stopped, Sydney was payed a free kick and 50 meter penalty from inside 50 and kicked the match winning goal from that. Very Stange game
Players don't know the exact time left but they do know the current score. Side note the coaches know the exact time left and can pass it on to players
@@BigMan-mc4vk Its not thought. The scoreboard clock counts up from 0 the umpires clock counts down from 20. The scoreboard clock doesn't stop counting at all but the umpires does. The scoreboard clock usually says anything from 25 to 35 minutes for a quarter not 20.
Please do more videos about AFL, it seriously Is the greatest sport ever in my opinion. A good video to make would be the lack of an ejection rule, it has lead to some insane fights cheif among which is the 1989 grand final, hawthorn vs gelong. They had one guy split a kidney and another puncture a lung. Both played out the entire match
In the 2018 SANFL preliminary final between North Adelaide and Woodville-West Torrens, North Adelaide actually had a 19th player on the field for almost 5 minutes and no one noticed. This was during the final quarter of play, which was seen as the most important as the game was so close. North Adelaide won the game 100-95 and would go on to face Norwood in the Grand Final and actually won 69-52. No one had noticed the extra man until after the game and so the game couldn't be cancelled or rule 5.5 enacted. North Adelaide still got to play in the grand final and won it but for the next season (this current season) they were fined $10,000AU and docked 4 points before the season even began which meant they began the season with -4 points, despite having won 2 out of 12 games so far they are sitting on 0 points overall as it is 2 points per win. Goes to show how seriously they take Football and potential cheating here in Australia @SB Nation
You forgot to mention that if your call for a headcount and they actually have 18 on the field then you loose all your points. Also in the games there’s 3 umpires on the field and one emergency in case one gets injured, and the emergency is sitting on the bench the whole time, and he will almost always catch 19 men on the field before the other team could.
I can think of one rule that was harsher. Not around anymore, nor is the game, but ancient mesoamericans used to play a game with a ball, a hoop and their hips that ended with the winning captain being ritually sacrificed. Not sure if it’s true but I remember hearing about it once
Don’t feel bad about your limited Australian Rules football knowledge. I’m Australian and it still baffles me (like most Sydney folk). Despite the data-heavy emphasis and jargon, it is still 50% speculation. And you actually get a point for missing. I’m not lying.
In high school soccer, my buddy slid into a guy in the box in like the last attempt to stop a goal from happening and knew he was gonna get a yellow card. There were a lot of same jerseyed teammates around so he just immediately and nonchalantly walked over behind the other defenders so the referees couldn't tell who to card.
I'm an umpire in grassroots Aussie Rules football and seen this exact scenario four times in three games... Long story short, it's now referred back to the league to work it out!
My dad ordered a count in a grand final. The opposition team had a guy sent off but the other team snuck a guy on and when the count was ordered the extra guy snuck off the field and my dads team ended up losing it because of that
I never played Aussie Rules except at school, but I got yellow-carded in under-17s soccer for entering the pitch before the player that was subbing-off had completely left the pitch. My coach was basically pushing on my back, so I thought he was impatient for me to go onto the pitch. Even afterwards, in future games when I was subbed-on, the coach still did the same thing.
![Hunxho - Ball Forever [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/nki9ZTF9Uls/mqdefault.jpg)
Legitimately think this might be the harshest rule that we've covered on the show. Like, this feels as though someone woke up grumpy and just wanted to be a jerk. Y'all got anything you think is worse?
Also, Speaking of the Bulldogs. A rewinder on their 2016 grand final win (our superbowl) wouldn't be too bad. One the greatest Australian sports stories ever.
Great video. It rarely happens though. I've only seen it once in the AFL. West Coast vs St Kilda 1999 last game of the regular season if I remember correctly.
Didn't even know about this rule.
Am Australian, but more into real sports like racing motorcycles you know a sport that requires 2 balls
@bongo155 more like Hockey. Because play doesn't stop during a subsitution.
I think that this mostly has the feel of: "How do we make sure, that there aren't more than 18 per team on the field?" - "Dunno, hard to count them, they move!" - "Let's just make a rule so harsh we never conceivably have to expect anyone to break it."
Never thought I'd hear West Torrens Eagles chat on SBNation, but here we are.
dsriggs same
That's Woodville-West Torrens to you buddy!
@@Cheeky_Chelsea You'd be under 30 then surely...
Nick C not in the 70s!
senzu_bean exactly Rhys!
In reality this rule is all but obsolete. In professional and semi-professional competitions teams do sometimes get 19 players on field for a few seconds because of mistakes at interchange, but instead of head-count usually one of the umpires will call an "Interchange Breach". The team that made the infringement will give up possession, and concede 50 metres. Or in other words, the opposition player receives a free kick, after walking 50 metres forward uncontested from where the ball is when the infringement is found.
Headcounts are more common in junior competitions (but still rare), but generally the penalty isn't usually wiping out the score completely. They might get a goal taken off, or have the same penalty as interchange breach (it differs based on each specific league)
Not true my man. It's rare but last year North Adelaide in the SANFL they had 19 men on the field for a minute or two. They managed to get their player off before a head count could be called. It was a huuuuuge deal in South Australia. They won that game, then the next weekend won the grand final.
Correct. It's exceedingly rare because more than likely the breach will be called before the opposition captain calls for a count. And there's significant penalties for calling a count that turns out to be wrong (ie: both sides actually do have the correct number of players). So you need to be bloody sure that you're right before calling for a headcount, AND do it before the opposition notices their mistake and corrects it.
I remember this happened with my local teams reserves in the grand final I think or a prelim, the opposition had 19 the whole match and were up by 60 but the coach from my local team told the ump and they’re score got wiped and my local team went on to win it all
Well I guess there you have it. There is no reason for them to do the video
This was 5-6 years ago. But it happened in an afl game I played. The score went down to nil in the 2nd quarter.
As an Aussie, saw the headline, had a laugh. Watched the video, didn’t do too bad a job!
Just for those unaware though, in the professional Aussie Rules league (The AFL) this rule is not applied and it’s just a free kick, but it is still a thing in all lower league competitions in the country.
I have a question as an American interested in Aussie Rules Football. I checked the rule book and noticed that the AFL changed the rule for the 2019 season specifically Law 5.5.3(c). The 2018 rules stated that "the Team shall lose all points which it has scored in the Match up to the time of the count." Now in 2019 the rule was changed to"the Team shall lose all points which it has scored *in that quarter* up to the time of the count" and informing the AFL who can review and ultimately decide whether they want to change the result or not. I just want to know why did the AFL make this rule change.
@@DoragonRider75 One thing you'll find out quickly is that the AFL is run by a bunch of flogs, so they probably changed this irrelevant rule just because they could. I think it makes more sense but there's no point of it since its never put into practice.
AFAIK it's still a rule, but it's very very rare because before the captain calls for a headcount, it would likely be picked up as an interchange breach, or the opposition fixes the count.
@@DoragonRider75 There were a couple controversies regarding this rule in lower State League competitions (think of it as the Aussie Rules equivalent of the Minor Leagues). They changed the rule to update it to the 21st Century where this kind of think would only happen by accident. This rule was likely written more than 100 years ago, before professional footy and where cheating would of been more common as it was easier to get away with.
Yeah came to call them out but sounds like they did their research
Another funny example of the 19 man rule was in the regional country league in Victoria, one team was winning by about 100 points with 8 minutes to go in the 4th quarter when the losing team called a head count, and it was revealed that the winning team accidentally had 19 men on the field, so their 100 point lead was reduced to a 25 point defecit.
In the ensuing chaos of this 120 point turnaround, a member of the team that was previously losing ran onto the field to taunt the opposition, who called for ANOTHER head count, it was found that THAT team now had 19 on the field, and their score was also erased.
Complete and utter madness.
Who won???
Which league?
Love Razor Ray on the thumbnail!
What a legend
Hate him
not as much as razor does
Razor thinks he’s the main character
It’s hard to actually do this, as the interchange is heavily monitored now a days. A mistake on interchange results in a fine, such as players crossing the interchange line before the sub has left the field. Also, a 19th person can make a difference in an AFL game, as players are matched to an opponent and generally have to defend that player. So if there’s an extra player, they could easily sneak towards the goals without being defended.
Ashlea Withers This happened in the league a few years ago, and I’m fairly sure they just gave a 50m penalty, it created a media stir for a week and then we forgot about it. I’m sure this whole story of a head count happened in the 70s but it doesn’t happen anymore.
I have no idea how these mopes don't think having more players on the field is cheating. Obviously they are 'guys' who think playong sports is sitting on the couch with an xbox controller...
@@WizKhalifaAustralia Oh 50 meters. Not 50 million AUD fee. I was wondering how rich the teams were for such a penalty.
@@biasedconfirmations many sports an extra player on the field for a minute or 2 could possibly not even effect the game in a meaningful matter, although in afl an extra player for that period of time would likely cause a goal to be scored.
@bongo155 It's literally called WAFL.
Had to double take when i saw Razor Ray on an SB nation thumbnail
biggest click bait...not a single razor ray moment
same i was checking to make sure it was SB
@@4thplace696 its about the rule not the guy dumbass
@@doctorvladandhisbluejaysd2802 that's never the case with Razor...
Me too.
There was a more recent incident around this in September 2018.
In the SANFL Semi-Finals, North Adelaide was discovered to have had 19 players on the field for about 5 minutes - during this time scoring 8 points, going on to win by 5 points. The player count wasn't done, because only the captain can call for the count and the extra player was off by the time it was noticed.
Woodville-West Torrens (They merged) protested the result, but rather than overturn the result the SANFL opted to let North Adelaide play in the Final the following week - which they went on to win, fine them $10,000 and start the 2019 Season on -2 wins
Drunk on farmers union iced coffee probably
Wait, -2 wins? Not 2 losses?
Your One Black Friend Who Gave you the N Word Pass In the SANFL you get 2 premiership points for a win, 1 point for a draw (rare) and 0 points for a loss. North Adelaide started the next season on -4 points.
@@CallanKilderry Lol
@@DaDualityofMan it was a 4 premiership point penalty handed to North for the 2019 season (a win is 2 points in the SANFL). As North have only won 1 game so far this season, they're still on -2 points for the season!
Just a note, players do know the exact score, and as far as i know they they've always been able to. There are large scoreboards at every stadium and even at local grounds. But correct regarding the time.
The clock actually counts up, similar to soccer, with time added for stoppages. So a quarter is 20mins plus stoppage time, but they don't advertise to the players how much time is being added. If you're watching on tv you can see the countdown clock though, so coaches and bench players always know and make the players on the field aware exactly how long is left.
0:34 And yet not even in the top ten harshest things about Australia.
Also, "Norm Dare" is such a 1970s football name.
This happened last year!!!! It's rare but last year North Adelaide in the SANFL they had 19 men on the field for a minute or two. They managed to get their player off before a head count could be called. It was a huuuuuge deal in South Australia including a hearing with an ex-supreme court judge to decide whether they could play next week or have the result overturned. They won that game, then the next weekend won the grand final.
Im proud of SB Nation, as an Australian viewer and huge fan of this channel, I'm glad you guys recognise Australian sport. Lotta love from down under.
Dreaming of a Brisbane Lions collapse vid
Jacob Den Dryver they didn’t recognize anything about Australian sport, but they tried anyway.
You mentioned Mario Party and losing everything, so allow me to point out that in Mario Party DS on Bowser's Pinball Machine, there is a string of 5 spaces *in a row* that if you land on them you lose all of your Coins AND all of your Stars. They are by far the most brutal spaces in any Mario Party game. I've seen it happen with people that had like 10 stars (DS is a very high-scoring game).
A rule about as harsh is the rule in golf where if you don’t sign your score card you points are taken away. It’s like you never played the game at all.
Yeah there are rules in other sports that basically amount to a forfeit.
SB Nation actually has a video where they explain a golf incident where a golfer unknowingly committed a penalty by using a towel or blanket to keep his pants clean, and he didn't record it in his score card, which invalidated his score. It was as if he never even showed up.
I forget what golf tournament this was.
Player played as normal. One spectator watching the tournament noticed on some hole that the player had teed of few cm before the spot where you supposed to tee off (between those two balls). Player was disqualified from the tournament.
Being Australian and following this account religiously for a while, it's satisfying seeing my favourite sport take the spotlight for a video
Craziest story o this was in the SANFL last year, preliminary final to make the grand final and North Adelaide made a 40+ point comeback, but for a 5 minute period they had 19 on the field and scored around 7-10 points, which was the margin they won by. However after the game they had 2 games deducted from next seasons tally and a fine. They went in to win the Grand Final.
Bailey Fry honest lay that’s what I though they were going to talk about when he said the SANFL
So happy we're finally getting the AFL related SB nation content we all deserve
2:48 You're right about the remaining time left, only the timekeepers know. Makes for some tense play, not knowing if that last second play has enough time to work. Players can look up at the scoreboard though if they want to know the score. Love your idea of pushing an opposing player into play then calling for a headcount!
You guys did a pretty good job, with the exception of calling umpires referees and the players always know the score, but the game clock isn’t known to the second. Still super impressed!
Aye when Australia makes SB Nation!
Never clicked so fast for a video in my life!
All we need now is an AFL rewind
Oliviben 20301 what would you rewind to ? Nick Riewoldt smothered kick in the GF? Jim Stynes cruising the mark?
I was thinking either carlton collingwood gf, the heath shaw smother in 2010 or leo barry 2005 gf or nick davis 2005 prelim
@@Oliviben what about the 2018 final? Lots of injuries and Collingwood were smashing them at the start.
You guys need to do the 2010 Grand Final rematch. It’s super weird, there was no rule for extra time in the grand final (effectively the Super Bowl for AFL), so in 2010, when there was a tie in the Grand Final, they played another game the next week to determine the premier (champion).
To sort of explain why a single extra player ends up being a big advantage and why it was (and still is in smaller local leagues) punished so heavily without going too in depth about it; If you get tackled with the ball it reverts to something similar to a 50/50 basketball tip off, so a lot of the ball movement relies upon getting a free player or outnumbering the opposition around the ball (2v1, 3v2 etc). Having just one single extra player, means you've always got a free option to pass to on attack while on defense be able to attack the player with the ball while covering all his options to pass to.
Aussie Rules made it onto weird rules! I was seriously hoping you guys might cover this one day. This has never happened in the top professional league, but that Norm Dare story is one of the best to come out of Aussie Rules. Sadly, the chaos of the headcount is highly unlikely to happen again at the top level because of the introduction of new interchange stewards a few years ago, so no more hiding under coats
I played in a game where this rule was invoked, junior football in Canberra in the late 1970s. About halfway through the second quarter, the umpire suddenly blew his whistle, called all players to the centre square and counted the opposition, coming up with 19. He didn't bother to count us but then told both teams that the oppositions score (they were behind at the time) would be reset to zero. The opposition looked stunned, no-one had tried to leave the pitch, so I think it was an honest mistake. I think none of us playing that day even knew of this rule and I have never seen it invoked since.
I was actually at this game your talking about as a West Adelaide supporter, it was the West Adelaide captain who makes the call to tell the umpire he wants a head count. It was chaotic as West Torrens players were fleeing off the ground in all directions to make it impossible to have the count. West Adelaide players were trying to stop them. At that stage of the game from memory, West Torrens were in front by a couple of goals, should have had their score wiped but went on to win easily as West Adelaide practically gave up. The rule book was thrown out of the window that day.
Do a beef history on AFL player and team captain Wayne Carey sleeping with his teammates wife
Jay Godwin big yes
Good idea.
Omg yes
Old news mate. I think we’ve all moved on after nearly 20 years.
Hey sb nation. There's a lot of idiots in Australian media that cover the sport. There could be a market on your channel for Aussie rules football videos. Great video, please make more. You could do one on the line in the sand match
I’m an American and would love to learn more about Australian football
Just a small clarification about players not knowing the time remaining.
There is a count-up clock at the ground. And most quarters go for roughly 28-32 minutes, so you know SORT OF how much time is left, but not exactly.
There have been times when the big screen uses the direct TV screen with the official countdown clock in the corner, but I haven't seen that in a while. They either superimposed a black square or something over that corner, or nowadays, they use a completely different feed, controlled presumably by a different production crew than the TV broadcast.
But the funny thing is that the coaches KNOW exactly how much time is remaining. So the bench knows how much time is remaining. I'll let you guess if they keep quiet about it if it's a tight game.
It's a funny one where the TV audience knows the time remaining but the stadium audience does not. Personally I prefer the count-up clock as then it increases the tension. I hate/love it.
As for score. Every ground in the country has a scoreboard, which everyone can see. Coaches might direct the players to ignore the scoreboard - ie: play your natural game regardless of the score - but there's usually no point to hiding the score from the players.
Just fyi:
Referee is known as an umpire
'Time outs' don't exist in Aussie Rules
This rule is basically obsolete
Most times you can see the score but not the actual time left. Every time play stops the official game time also stops, but for some reason it's usually just shown to everyone as the the time for that quarter (period). Official game time per qtr is 20 min but the actual time is usually 25-30 min including stoppages.
Love the show guys! Sure I won't be the only one mentioning this, but England just beat New Zealand in the Cricket World Cup Final. However the match was tied in normal play and extra time 'superover', and NZ lost by 0, tiebreaker of most boundaries was used....i know cricket is a series of weird rules onto itself but this has got to be worth an episode given the circumstances in which it occurred
The one strike rule for track false starts may be more harsh. Especially for distance races.
Big AFL fan here, loved the video. A suggestion for Rewinder might be the back to back Sydney Swans v West Coast Eagles grand finals, both decided by one score. Or the Kennent curse, where Hawthorn, after winning the 2008 grand final, lost 4 or 5 straight years worth of games to Geelong after their president said they'd "never be beaten by Geelong again."
Players are now allowed to know the score, also, the bench is highly monitored so this would let happen anymore haha.
Would love to see an AFL rewind! Love this channel and am an avid Aussie Rules fan! We can all tell you games to rewind.
This happened in the NEAFL Grand Final in 2018. Southport were winning by a comfortable margin then in the final quarter a headcount was called and they were found to have 19 players on the field. The Swans, who called the headcount, decided they didn't want to win the grand final in that manner so they withdrew the headcount after it was completed and an interchange breach was instead called. Southport went on to win easily. I was playing in the game and it was chaos. Nobody on the field knew of the score had been wiped so it was only after the game that we found out that we had lost.
I feel like there's another whole side of this rule that isn't addressed at all in this video, which is, if your score was already zero, such as at the very start of the game, there's effectively no penalty for playing too many people on the field.
Okay, first quarter? I send out 50 people on my side of the field. What are you gonna do? Make my score _more_ zero?
Couldn't the opponent just keep calling head count over and over again and basically stop the game?
as soon as a goal is kicked the opposition can immediately call head count and remove the 6 points you just got
Was expecting to hear two people absolutely butcher our game but was actually a really well thought out and well explained video
If theres only 4 subs... wouldn't it be easier to count players on the bench?
Nah sometimes subs have to leave the interchange area due to injury. You could argue that the fourth bloke on the bench is away getting treatment.
@@dankaz Such an aussie response "Nah"
Plus at lower levels of competition, you might have a reserve grade player still in his playing gear looking for something they left on the bench during the reserve game while a senior game is going on. There’s plenty of leagues that take themselves pretty seriously, and might potentially apply this rule, but still don’t really take themselves seriously enough to restrict access to the bench. Volunteers and players from an earlier game, as well as fans or partners of players all tend to milk around the benches at suburban grounds and chat to their mates who are coaching or playing. It’s not an entirely easy 4 people to pick out and count at a moments notice.
Not exactly the case. Some players who get injured and go onto the bench will head down the race into the team rooms to get treated but the medical staff.
Another case that comes to mind was when the GWS Giants played the Carlton Blues in 2018. The Giants had 4 players injured on the bench during the game so at some points it would look like the Giants had 6 players on the bench as they had players coming off to get a 1-2 minute break. But those players who were coming off didn't count as going onto the bench (interchanging) as they had no fit players on the bench. This meant the players were running on and off as they counted as on the field. So you had at points the Giants playing 16 players to Carltons 18 players. The result though would not be what you expected though, with the Giants winning by 104 points.
I wouldn’t even consider this to be harshest penalty in Australian sports.
In the early 2000’s the North Queensland Cowboys in the NRL (National Rugby League) had one extra player (14 instead of 13) on the field for a period of time and was discovered after the game was over.
As a result, the NRL stripped the win result that North Queensland got from the game itself.
I don't even watch sports, but this series is still fascinating.
Hey guys, the players can always see the score. You're kind of right about the clock - there's no countdown, the clock counts up. Quarters are 20 minutes long plus time on, so players know the quarter will usually go between 25-30 minutes depending on how many goals are kicked (which adds a little to time on since play stops and the game is restarted in the centre square). It's quite suspenseful for the crowd since we don't know when the siren will sound in a close game. Anyhow, great video! Love your stuff.
Having played Aussie rules for a decade now, one extra player makes a huge difference in the sport.
You should do a video on the CFL's rouge rule. It led to the single craziest play in football history on October 29, 2010 between Toronto and Montreal. In a single play from scrimmage, there was 1 field goal attempt, 3 punts (one of which was blocked) and a touchdown.
Thanks for representing my country's sport.
19 on a field is a huge advantage though; at least at the top level. It may not sound like much, but the way zones are set up and planned, having an extra man on the field is impossible to defend against as your resources are accounted for. I remember a game 10-15 years ago now between North Melbourne and Sydney where Sydney had 19 on the field at the end of the game. The ball ended up spilling to a free swans player who scored and drew the game. North weren't aware of it quick enough to call a head count, so that cost them the win.
It is indeed always a mistake, but you need a tough penalty to keep it that way.
Its kind of archaic too as IIRC, only the captain can call for a headcount; so the opposition interchange needs to notice it and communicate it to the captain who communicates it to an umpire, which all takes time.
Also, you cant really push players onto the field like you suggest at the end lol. There is only one interchange gate, and the teams are separated either side of it.
I have actually been boundary umpire for a game where this happened. The role of a boundary umpire is to stop anyone from leaving the ground. But the game I was in, the team was up by about 50 points. Then the count happened early in the last quarter but because the opponents score was so low (about 3 goals), they almost won again.
Firstly, this penalty is absolutely deserved, one extra player, in AFL, is a HUGE advantage, because of how physical, demanding and tough the sport is, you can see a team go "one up" due to 5 players being injured from one side, which, while very rare, you just see how much of an advantage it gives the other team
As for the rule it's self, it's very, very rare to see it done, there are common interchange infringements, but usually never a head count, you'll never see it in the top leagues (AFL, VFL, SANFL, WAFL, NEAFL, so on
The only example of anything recent I can think of is in my local competition (Broken Hill AFL) where in a game between West and South (very imaginative names, I know) there was a head count, but the local league decided to rewrite that rule a little (perfectly in their powers I might add) to change it to lose all your points scored when that player was on, which I disagree with, but what am I supposed to do, I also remember that the infringing team (West) got away with it because they managed to sneak their extra player off the field
Sadly I'm only relaying what someone told me, as I was at the other game (Central v North) because eff both South and West
This is pretty rare, in my experience it's always been drilled in my head not to run on the field until the person you're going on for has come off. Also the scores aren't hidden, but the times are, though sometimes in professional games it goes up on the big TVs briefly when it shows a replay.
This is by far my favorite series. You guys are so dang funny. It makes my day every time I see another episode uploaded
Finally an AFL video finally this is so amazing
I played in a game where this happened. It happened about 3 quarters of the way through the game - the other team lost all their points but... still beat us. School football for the win.
Must be said, the players know the score all the time - not sure where you got the idea we don't from. We don't know how much time is left though - you're right about that - the clock counts up instead of down.
Oh, and because of the size of the field having an extra man can make a big difference. There's a LOT of space on a footy field.
You can actually see the score - there's a scoreboard at the side in all levels (probably except kids leagues).
You can also see the time as a player in the AFL, but the timer counts up at the actual game, starting at 0:00. When watching it on TV, it counts down from 20:00. Bit complicated, but on TV, the timer countdown will stop during stoppages, but at the ground, it continues up, and the time for stoppages is added. So for example, a 20 second stoppage would make the quarter 20:20, but unless you as a fan or player at the game knew that it was a 20 second stoppage, you wouldnt know when the quarter was due to end.
On a side note I think the harshest penalty to be ever laid down was against Essendon for the "player supplement saga" during the 2012 season. They were found guilty, and the AFL forced Essendon out of the finals, fined them $2m, banned 34 players for 12 months, stripped the Essendon player that won the leagues Best and Fairest of his win, and banned them from the 1st two round draft picks for 2 years.
I would love to see these guys take a look at snooker's "foul and a miss" rule. Snooker is an unimaginably hard game to play well, especially when escaping snookers, and this rule basically means the referee calls a miss if the player didn't make a good enough attempt at escaping the snooker. This of course leads to many annoyed players missing shots by literal fractions of millimeters. (Keep in mind, snooker is an extremely British sport, so our version of "annoyed" is different to the Americans.)
I would love seeing Americans tackle snooker.
One quick note - they don’t hide the score. They do hide the time so you don’t know how long is left, which is awesome when you are there live
There was an example in a lower league last year where this happened. A team played with 19 players for some time, and in that time, kicked more points than what the final margin was. The 19th player was removed before the head count to be enacted. It was in a semi-final (called a preliminary final in Australia) as well. It was decided by that league's tribunal that the result would stand, but that next season, that team would be docked four table points (the equivalent of winning one game).
I love that you have an episode for Aussie rules. :) I play in the only Bulgarian team in this sports, don't confuse with my volleyball channel.
I've never heard/seen the score be hidden at a top-flight AFL game
Hiding the exact time of play remaining? Depends on the field, year, personal preference, the weather, availability of hot dogs...
What are they on about “they don’t know the score” every field has some sort of scoreboard
True, but even in the AFL the players don't know the clock...
Yeah I think they got confused on that point. Aussie Rules players know the score, but the clock on the scoreboard counts up instead of down and doesn't show added time so they don't know how long is left. BUT in the AFL, the TV coverage clock does count down and stop for breaks in play, so the team coaches can just monitor the TV coverage and signal their teams how much time is left. Complicated.
David Muggleton the players know how much time has gone just not how long they have left in the quarter
@@MightyRoys The teams have their own timekeepers. So there are actually four of them every game - one for each team, the ch7 one, and the official one, which is why the siren always goes a few seconds late according to the TV.
YES!!! I'm so glad you covered AFL. I'm from Australia and it it's so awesome to hear you talking about it! Thankyou so so much
*Flag on the play*
“Too many men on the field, offense. Please reset the game cl... I’m sorry, the visitor team score to 0”
lol been watching afl since 1992 and i have never seen this happen
benficamad yeah I think it’s happened like once or twice in the last hundred years in a couple of lower league matches.
Guy McKenna called a headcount in a match in the 90s
It did happen in the SANFL last year though …
2:51 - In all seriousness, this is a fantastic element of the footy. Really good job I might stress as an obsessed footy fan. Also for a harsh rule, look at the England Pakistan Cricket Test in 2006 (unsubstantiated ball tampering)
I umpire local cricket, and in my second game, my colleague and I realised partway through the first innings that the fielding team had 12 players, not 11, and we had no idea how long that had been the case. Good thing there's no headcount rule in cricket, we'd have looked like total idiots..!
I'm an Aussie and I live and breath for this game, love SB Nation so I'm glad you covered some AFL ('footy'). Although, I've never seen this rule applied... You should cover this sport more often (and glad you apologised for knowing nothing about it haha), it's the 4th most popular league in the world as per average attendance (5th in aggregate), behind only NFL and German and English Premier Leagues
... Average attendance doesn't really count for much when the population of Australia is notably less than that of even just the state of Texas and the sport isn't played ANYWHERE else. 🤷
Razer ray in the thumbnail , finally the international attention he craves
I’m genuinely surprised how well these fellas talked about footy, apart from the hiding the score. That made me cringe a little but good work regardless
Imagine if this rule applie to the NFL. A flag on the 4th quarter of the super bowl for too many man on the field and losing all your points 😂😂
Even CFL have one occasion of too many mens in Grey Cup(Montreal-Saskatchewan,2009), and Montreal only get a replay of final play.
It's much different because with the NFL you have more players and coaches on the sideline than you do on the field whereas you only have 4 on the bench in the afl so it's easy to keep track of how many you have on the field
ive played AFL (Australian rules football) for 10 years and that rule is actually taken very seriously , mainly for the fact i think like you said as in you wouldnt notice but for that exact reason i believe is WHY it is so important because it would be really easy to just slip an extra guy from the bench on the field. and in a game were a spare man is actually a huge thing like for those who dont play most set ups for most games are set on man on man positions like most sports so a spare man anywhere can be huge especially in division 1 sides and professional leagues. Also i remember once when i was playing that there was a pause in play because of an injury and our coach told us to come over to the sidelines and told the guys on the bench "woah don't go on the ground" becuase of this exact rule.
Followed the game for my entire life and never heard of this rule one. Would love to see some videos on AFL though. Maybe some Jon Bois takes.
I'm wondering how well this would be enforced at the start of the game lol.
Like at the start of the game, the score is 0-0, so what's to stop you from fielding 42 players, running your opponent into the ground, and then clearing out all but 18 of them in time for the first goal.
At the same time, I kinda want to know how this rule came to be:
Ref: "You guys have too many players on the field"
"So? What're you gonna do about it, huh?"
Ref: *grabs eraser and slowly walks towards a comically large chalkboard*...
Still nowhere near as good as the replay the final in case of draw rule afl had..... And applied
That was an insane year
Gaelic games have that too.
If he was on a stretcher, does that mean he /technically/ wasn't /on/ the field? He was above the field, but by that logic you can call a head count as a plane flies over
They were calling a head count on the two guys carrying the stretcher, clearly.
Still on the field until he crosses the boundary line. But calling a count in that situation is a bit of a dog act.
@@GMHSVE but him being injured would disqualify him from being an active player still, no?
@@kayleighlehrman9566 No.
@@kayleighlehrman9566 Not until he was off the field
Someone should do "the creation of SB nation deserves a deep rewind"
ruclips.net/video/XwXEndQ4PNE/видео.html your wish has kinda been granted!
Just a heads up, there is a scoreboard at every Aussie Rules game. So the score is not hidden from the players. But the clock is a count up clock so you are right when the players don't know how much longer is left.
E.g the score could be:
team A: 82
Team B: 77
With 2 mins left in the game, but read as 27:36 mins
So the players know what they need to win, and although they may not know the exact time before the buzzer goes, they can see that its not far off given the high number. So it becomes a big scramble for the win.
When I learned about this rule a few days ago, I found a team that lost 89 POINTS because it had an extra man on a stretcher. (Ryan already knew about it, of course.)
Ya list watched 4:00
Had this happen in final in local footy and the other team literally dragged player off to avoid being over the count because some of the players from their bench had run on to join in the punch on that was taking place. Umpire just said fine then and gave them a score of zero anyway.
To me the weirdest part of all about this rule is that the punishment can actually be incredibly light in the right circumstances. If a team hadn't scored yet then losing all your points will do literally nothing. If you were on defense and hadn't scored yet, it seems like there would be no downside to sending out a 19th man.
Great to see Aussie Rules getting a guernsey on this channel. And so many Aussies in comments. It is a harsh rule but in top league it’s not enforced.
However, it can be a big advantage because it’s easy to get away with due to large teams and huge fields, and it’s a sport with no offside. Imagine basketball with 10 guys on an NFL field. Then double both the field and the player count. Getting a free man in open space is guaranteed points.
Lenny Randle blows ball into foul territory on May 27th 1981. It was hilarious. 1 day later MLB umpires established rule to ban that.
I think they need this rule in all sports to prevent delay of game when someone is injured. Then we will see medical teams at practice doing wind sprints so they can change injured players off the field faster. They can call it the NASCAR rule.
In 1999 West Coast coach Mick Malthouse called for a head count against St Kilda. I doubt Malthouse thought they had a extra player though. It was probably a tactic as St Kilda were beating West Coast badly. That's the only time I've seen it in the AFL.
I played in a game where we were 40 points down, one of the opposition's player was sent from the field for fighting. Then once play resumed, stormed back on the field to fight someone else, our captain called a headcount. They had 19 including the guy who was fighting.
Their Score was wiped. Then their whole team went into the locker rooms and refused to come out.
Never see this rule payed but this year I saw a similar rule played.
Each team only gets 75 interchanges per game (players coming on and off the field)
North Melbourne was up by less than a goal when they did a 76th interchange. Play was stopped, Sydney was payed a free kick and 50 meter penalty from inside 50 and kicked the match winning goal from that.
Very Stange game
Me: See's AFL on SB Nation
Also Me: *instantly smashes the video*
Players don't know the exact time left but they do know the current score. Side note the coaches know the exact time left and can pass it on to players
well the time left would be on the stadiums scoreboard
@@BigMan-mc4vk Its not thought. The scoreboard clock counts up from 0 the umpires clock counts down from 20. The scoreboard clock doesn't stop counting at all but the umpires does. The scoreboard clock usually says anything from 25 to 35 minutes for a quarter not 20.
Please do more videos about AFL, it seriously Is the greatest sport ever in my opinion. A good video to make would be the lack of an ejection rule, it has lead to some insane fights cheif among which is the 1989 grand final, hawthorn vs gelong. They had one guy split a kidney and another puncture a lung. Both played out the entire match
In the 2018 SANFL preliminary final between North Adelaide and Woodville-West Torrens, North Adelaide actually had a 19th player on the field for almost 5 minutes and no one noticed. This was during the final quarter of play, which was seen as the most important as the game was so close. North Adelaide won the game 100-95 and would go on to face Norwood in the Grand Final and actually won 69-52. No one had noticed the extra man until after the game and so the game couldn't be cancelled or rule 5.5 enacted. North Adelaide still got to play in the grand final and won it but for the next season (this current season) they were fined $10,000AU and docked 4 points before the season even began which meant they began the season with -4 points, despite having won 2 out of 12 games so far they are sitting on 0 points overall as it is 2 points per win. Goes to show how seriously they take Football and potential cheating here in Australia @SB Nation
SB Nation talking about my state of South Australia feels so strange
You forgot to mention that if your call for a headcount and they actually have 18 on the field then you loose all your points.
Also in the games there’s 3 umpires on the field and one emergency in case one gets injured, and the emergency is sitting on the bench the whole time, and he will almost always catch 19 men on the field before the other team could.
Welcome fans of the Lateral Podcast by Tom Scott
Huh, I didn’t even search for this but it turned up in my RUclips recommendation the day after I listened
BTW Both teams interchange benches are right next to each other, not opposite the field. This prevents advantages of switching players over.
I can think of one rule that was harsher. Not around anymore, nor is the game, but ancient mesoamericans used to play a game with a ball, a hoop and their hips that ended with the winning captain being ritually sacrificed. Not sure if it’s true but I remember hearing about it once
Oh Man!! You guys NEED to do Cricket on these quirky and weird rules segment on SB Nation. You'll have content for YEARS!!
Don’t feel bad about your limited Australian Rules football knowledge. I’m Australian and it still baffles me (like most Sydney folk). Despite the data-heavy emphasis and jargon, it is still 50% speculation. And you actually get a point for missing. I’m not lying.
As a AFL player a 19th player on the field is gonna lead to a open goal which could cost you the game
good work guys on expanding the weird rules
In high school soccer, my buddy slid into a guy in the box in like the last attempt to stop a goal from happening and knew he was gonna get a yellow card. There were a lot of same jerseyed teammates around so he just immediately and nonchalantly walked over behind the other defenders so the referees couldn't tell who to card.
I'm an umpire in grassroots Aussie Rules football and seen this exact scenario four times in three games...
Long story short, it's now referred back to the league to work it out!
My dad ordered a count in a grand final. The opposition team had a guy sent off but the other team snuck a guy on and when the count was ordered the extra guy snuck off the field and my dads team ended up losing it because of that
I never played Aussie Rules except at school, but I got yellow-carded in under-17s soccer for entering the pitch before the player that was subbing-off had completely left the pitch. My coach was basically pushing on my back, so I thought he was impatient for me to go onto the pitch.
Even afterwards, in future games when I was subbed-on, the coach still did the same thing.