Geelong star Patrick Dangerfield believes the players' opinions on rule changes are seemingly irrelevant.
Dangerfield has taken a shot at the AFL over the amount of rule changes the league has made over the past few seasons, and said he believes the opinion of the players don't count for much when it comes to those changes.
"It's irrelevant what the players think," Dangerfield told Fox Footy on Sunday.
"Well, it seems to be โ we're consulted but the rules get changed regardless, so we'll just adapt, we have to."
It's an opinion that's heavily backed by West Coast coach Adam Simpson, as he too detailed his frustration over the new rules introduced over the past few seasons.
"You look back over the last few years and you scratch your head. The sub rule โ what was that for? We had players in a vest for three years. Why?" Simpson told Fairfax Media on Saturday.
"Last year it was the 10m protected area rule. For the first three or four weeks they were paying 50m penalties and then it stopped. Why? What does that mean?
"I can understand why the AFL changes a rule for players' safety or talk about umpires throwing the ball up because it helps them when they're more mentally fragile as juniors but when they bring in rule change after rule change I just can't see the benefit of it."
"And we don't get consulted with any fair warning."
One rule Dangerfield has questions about is the new "third man up" adaptation, where only the two nominated ruckmanย are allowed to go for the ball at each ruck contest.
The rule was introduced to reduce congestion, although Dangerfield believes it was fine just the way it was.
"Everything's about apparently moving the ball on and making sure the game's free-flowing," Dangerfield said.
"If you think about why most teams go 'third man up', it's to clear congestion (and) to free it up.
โSo, (the rule change is) interesting."
Despite having his problems with some rules, Dangerfield admits he is happy with two of the more recent changes brought in for the start of 2017.
"I think we continue to change rules too often," Dangerfield said.
"But for an example, I think the deliberate out of bounds rule has been a wonderful rule. It promotes keeping the ball in play and continue to be attacking.
"I think the rushed behind rule's going to be a really good one because it keeps things exciting, but I think weโve been a bit over-zealous with some of the changes as well."
