Matthews: Coaches rorting the rules

AFL legend Leigh Matthews says modern day coaches are rorting the rules.

Calls for the rules of the game to be left alone come thick and fast this time of the year, as the AFL tinkers with new rules during the NAB Challenge.

Just yesterday, West Coast coach Adam Simpson called for the league to stop tinkering with the rules for the good of the game.

“I just want to know why we’re doing all of this. What’s the reasoning?” Simpson said.

“To make the game quicker? To make it more fatigue-based? More one-on-one? More scores? It’s hard to keep up sometimes.

“We’ve just got to be careful why we’re changing things.

“Now it’s this, let’s just leave it at this. Let us deal with it and work and strategize and expose, and do all the things coaches do with spare time.”

However, Matthews said he believes coaches are only looking at their own self-interests when they call for rules to be kept the same.

“I heard Adam Simpson saying coaches don’t like rules being changed,” Matthews told 5AA Radio in Adelaide.

“I love this. Simpson said ‘let us deal, work, strategize and expose and do all the things coaches do with their spare time.’ In other words, the job of coaches is to rort the rules.

“This thought that you can’t alter and adjust and tinker with the rules (is wrong) because coaches are rorting them.

“If you see rules being exploited and rorted, you have to be prepared for the good of the game to be prepared to make an adjustment.”