But the quickest way to come back to the chasing pack is to rest on your laurels.

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AFL coaches hate complacency, just as much as AFL executives know that it can kill ongoing progression.

To progress, sometimes you have to rip the Band-Aid off and upset a few people along the way.

Transformative change in our game is required. This type of systematic adjustment is often seen in the corporate world, where management consultants suggest large shifts in both the scale and scope of an organisation, involving major changes in the mission, strategy and structure of a company.

With a massive broadcast rights deal in the rearview mirror and private equity money pouring into the sports and entertainment industry worldwide, the time for AFL action is now.

This is not a time for the faint-hearted, where small incremental changes will address the long term needs of the game.

While there are a number of other key considerations for the AFL over the next three to five years – including an improved match review officer and tribunal process; enhancements in ball chip and goal line technology; a review of the illicit drugs policy; more sophistication in commercialising talent; and improving Auskick and junior pathways – the following is a list of priorities that Dillon and general manager of football Laura Kane must consider to ensure the game keeps wearing the yellow jersey of Australian sports.

Eradicate ‘prior opportunity’

Just as this rule has been allowed too long to find its place in the game, players are afforded too much time to dispose of the ball. The game has become too congested, with stoppages per game increasing from 58 in 2022, to 67 in 2023, with a further upward trend to begin 2024.

In my view, if you are tackled and do not dispose of the ball correctly by hand or foot, then it should be adjudicated as “holding the ball”. This rule change will result in more free kicks being paid and help open play up, greatly diminishing congestion, ensuring a fun and entertaining product for fans.

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Shorten the game, broaden the fixture

For a long time, I was an advocate of fewer rounds, firm in the view that less would equal more in terms of the on-field product and the meaning of each match. A 17-game season, where every team plays each other once, would go a long way of improving the significant inequity that exists in a 24-round fixture.

However, I concede that the industry’s vast revenue is largely predicated on the men’s game and its content – the more content there is, the more money there is in the game. As such, I would decrease the game time to 15 minutes, plus time on, and increase the number of games in order to eradicate some of the inequalities of the fixture, while also considering the introduction of two conferences ahead of the Tasmania Devils joining the competition in 2028.

Decrease AFL list sizes, implement a reserves competition

By decreasing AFL list sizes to 30-32 and allowing for more vertical movement of players between the state leagues and the AFL or their reserves team (as occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic), the state leagues would have a higher standard of players, while allowing AFL teams to spend more time making the elite of our game even better.

The AFL will be able to commercialise an AFL reserves competition and that money would flow down to the states for the enhancement of grassroots footy and their talent pathways.

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