AFL Rd 6 2022 Post Game Permutations Carlton vs Fremantle

[LP]

Yeah, 2-3 months for Pitto.

Knee guards? Maybe.

Probably just easier they either do a jump ball (Bball style) or run in from the same direction (ala boundary throwins).

Firstly, fans often get the PCL confused with the Patella, thinking the damage is in the front of the knee but it isn't. It connects from the middle of the upper to the rear of the lower. The cross section on the right below shows the knee facing left.
[img width=350]https://www.jorgechahlamd.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Figure-1-PCL-Anatomy.jpg[/img]

Knee guards are not the solution, the problem might even be worse because of them, they can be used like the NFL body armour as a battering ram to increase the impact forces. Knee / shin guards mostly protect the patella tendon in the front and prevent skin damage and calcification which is a common problem.

I'd ban raising the knees altogether, it's just not required, it's a tactic that was introduced by smaller ruckmen like Newman in the 60s and 70s to compete with the giants.

I would also penalise the rucks for watching their opponent and not watching the footy like Darcy did to Pitto.

Allow the rucks to wrestle a bit more with the fend offs, give them the choice of jumping or not jumping, it's a skill. I'm not talking about guys who step through past the fall of the ball and prevent a fair contest, that can still be penalised as a block. But they should be able to meet body to body without jumping, as long as it is under the fall of the ball. Pitto and some other rucks have been wrongly penalised for this in recent times, and that is actually contributing to the PCL problem.

The AFL might be even better off to just ban raising the knee, ban shin/knee guards and also make the circle a little bigger to allow the jumping type rucks a fair run at it against a wrestling type ruck. Almost a bit of going backwards to go forwards. The rule on raising the knee could be as simple as the upper leg has to be below horizontal at the time of impact, PCLs occur when the upper leg is at or above horizontal at the time of impact and the lower leg gets push back stretching the PCL. In the image below Darcy is using his kneecap / patella to drive into Pitto's shin, if Pitto's jump had been a touch lower so that he made contact below Darcy's knee, they both could have sustained PCL injuries in the one contest.