{"id":21456,"date":"2025-10-01T12:04:02","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T12:04:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=21456"},"modified":"2025-10-01T12:04:02","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T12:04:02","slug":"australian-rules-axes-centre-bounce-after-130-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=21456","title":{"rendered":"Australian Rules axes &#8216;centre bounce&#8217; after 130 years"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Australian Rules football has started games with a centre bounce for more than 130 years, but from next season it will be ditched because umpires are finding it too hard to master the skill.<\/p>\n<p>The country&#8217;s most popular spectator sport, similar to Ireland&#8217;s Gaelic football, traces its roots back to 1858 when spherical or oval balls were first used.<\/p>\n<p>Since 1887, field umpires have been required to bounce the ball at the start of each quarter, rather than throw it in the air. A centre bounce after each goal was introduced four years later.<\/p>\n<p>But mastering the skill has become a barrier for prospective umpires, according to Australian Football League executive manager Greg Swann on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The centre bounce has long been a part of Australian Football tradition, but as the game has evolved, there are several areas which will benefit from allowing umpires to simply throw the ball up at the restart,&#8221; he said in a statement outlining the change.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Currently, umpire pathways are being narrowed by the requirement of the bounce.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is a difficult skill to execute, and we believe is preventing some of our best umpiring prospects from progressing any further in the AFL pathway despite having elite decision-making skills.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The new rule will bring the men&#8217;s game in line with the women&#8217;s &#8212; the AFLW &#8212; where the ball has been thrown up rather than bounced since its inception in 2017.<\/p>\n<p>Australian Rules is regularly played in front of packed stadiums, with 100,000 fans watching the grand final last weekend at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.<\/p>\n<p>Brisbane Lions defeated the Geelong Cats to retain their title.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Australian Rules football has started games with a centre bounce for more than 130 years, but from next season it will be ditched because umpires are finding it too hard to master the skill. The country&#8217;s most popular spectator sport, similar to Ireland&#8217;s Gaelic football, traces its roots back to 1858 when spherical or oval [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21456\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}