The AFL’s quirky rule exposed amid frenzy of Saturday night’s draw

Hawthorn would not have won had they attempted to rush the ball through for a behind after the siren. But they would have won had Collingwood punched it over the goal line.

Under AFL rules if Hawthorn – say Lloyd Meek for instance, who wound up to punch the ball and missed – knocked the ball through it would not have registered as a rushed behind to deliver a Hawthorn win. You can’t punch your own ball through for a score after the siren. It’s considered a secondary act of play to assist the score, and given play is technically dead after the siren, there can’t be a secondary play after the siren. Unless you are the other team.

Under rule 16.5.2 had Collingwood punched the ball through, or it came off Collingwood hands and crossed the line, then it would a behind would have been registered Hawthorn would have won.

So, this won’t comfort Dylan Moore any, but he needed to clear the pack and get a score off his own boot.

It does seem inconsistent that one team can create a score by touching the ball after the siren and not the other. Logically, any team touching the ball from the kick should mean it is a secondary act.

Incidentally, viewers had no idea what was happening on the goal line watching the lamentable Fox coverage, which managed at the most critical moment to crop out all of the play on the goal line.

In a game with no winner there were two victors and a clear loser. Josh Fraser’s Carlton won . The AFL’s contentious wildcard round won. St Kilda lost.

Josh Fraser’s Carlton will play “finals”, or at least a quasi-final round. St Kilda will not.

Carlton lost the biggest name of the off-season to St Kilda as well as the son of a scion of the club, and are now certain to finish ahead of the Saints.

Carlton lost their coach in round nine and surely found their new one in the next 13 rounds.

Fraser should not have needed the draw, which affirms the Blues of a place in the pre-elimination final elimination final that is the wildcard round, to convince those who matter of his bona fides as a senior coach, but it can’t have hurt.

Appropriately for the wildcard round concept, the final team to qualify is the very definition of a joker in the pack.

To take a rabble of a team and turn them around in season is a major achievement. For Carlton to have the wherewithal to know in the last minute that a draw was enough for them to make the wildcard round, and then to have the composure to just hold possession, betrayed a maturity not long seen at Princes Park.

I’ve been a cynic of the whole wildcard round based on it rewarding the mediocre – 10th in a field of 18 making the finals has shades of ribbons and lollipops for everyone. But it is difficult to argue with the merit of it after this game.