“It’ll happen”: AFL footy boss concedes ruck injury risk under new rule

AFL football boss Greg Swann has acknowledged that the new ruck rules could cause PCL injuries, but that might be an "unintended consequence" of improving overall scoring.

The new rule of ruckmen not engaging with the opposition in centre ball-ups was immediately brought into disrepute when Geelong's Shannon Neale went down last week.

Despite the Cats clearing Neale of any injury, the ball-up between the Cat and Carlton's Marc Pittonet epitomised the action of PCL injuries.

"I think you'd be naive to say it's not going to happen — it'll happen," Swann acknowledged on Fox Footy.

"If there was a pandemic of them, you might change it back… it's going to happen.

"The unintended consequences from a good perspective is scores out of the centre bounces have gone up. It's a very small sample size, but the things that we wanted — the game length has gone back, the scoring has gone up, scoring from centre bounces has gone up, so we're hopeful that goes into the season proper as well."

The return of jumping ruckman has forced the competition's big men to get creative inside the centre circle.

Sydney's Brodie Grundy raised eyebrows when he faked out GWS' Nick Madden, encouraging the latter to cross the line and ultimately be penalised.

However, Swann confirmed that will not be a free kick going forward.

"We've looked at that, and he (Grundy) got a free for that (last week), but there wouldn't be a free (going forward)," Swann said.

"If you don't jump, and you want to… (do) the stooging, you can stooge, but it'll be play on."

The ruck "stooging" will be deemed in the same vein as a fake handball to induce the player on the mark to come off the line.