There are more and more basketball references being made in AFL these days.

Turnovers, man on man, press, even flooding is a derivative of a zone defence.

Set plays when kicking the ball in are common too much like side ball plays that we all know.

May be Sheedy should focus on wooden cutlery more than shooting his mouth off.

Weak swipe IMO. Irrelevant, but unfortunately it's the sport that the masses follow.

Realistically, basketball couldn't be further from the slow style he's criticising. There's a shot clock for one thing. If Phil Smyth wants another easy media opportunity, he should get stuck into Sheedy.

He's bottom of the ladder and if you read his quotes you'll see that he's struggling to make a coherent point beyond slow football being boring football. Deciding to slag billiards and basketball probably says more about his own ignorance than anything.

I'd agree with that Isaac. The trend in the last couple of seasons in the NBL has been to run . Phil's approach of run and gun has been adopted by many teams - even Goorjian at times (although with some specific rules) .

I would say that Basketball is getting faster and faster . If Sheedy wants to see speed tell him to watch a game of college Hoops and tell me his players can keep up with a fast-breaking offence.

Sheedy got grilled and labelled "out-dated" on the Footy Show ( who'm i dont put a lot of stock in usually) . He needs to fire up and grab some attention to show that he isnt irrelevant yet.

I've often criticised AFL for not "looking-after-the-ball" and for being a game of who can make the least amount of errors. But after the Richmond Adelaide game I can see why Sam Newman and the likes get upset. I guess with 36 people on a field, it can get quite congested, so the long-bomb or direct approach is needed to keep the game from turning into keepings-off.

Nothing pisses me off more than people having footy people deflecting blame to basketball. Just because AFL footy has mutated into a sport of unwatchable pith, they take it on the hardwood heroes like Slambour and Jake Tsakilidis.

I think its also in reference that in Basketball you dont just throw it down to the centre and hope he wins the contest, you pass the ball around, back and forth until an opportunity presents it self. It is turning the game into a far less enjoyable specticle. You might win a fewv more games but you will lose more gate reciepts. Could be good for Basketball tho.

I think they could learn alot more from basketball. Like kick in to the opposite team that touched it last over the boundary, passing back, and more?

I don't think it was anything like basketball, but it was a disgrace. I played keepings off in Primary School. The thing is if the oval was the same size as the Telstra Dome then I'd still fucking be there!

Imagine if you could do the same thing in basketball: you get 2 points up and then pass the ball amoungst yourselves for 48 minutes (no shot clock). Great for the fans!

Richmond is a joke: an irrelevancy in modern football. They haven't been in contention for anything since the Nixon administration.

The 'no mark if kicked backwards' was trialled pre-season, but doesn't really work because, particularly in the forward half, kicking backwards can give a person a better angle/approach to the goals.

An rule along the lines of 'you can only have 12 people in one half of the field at any time could help, but would be impossible to implement with 36 people on the oval.

Anyway, I think the reference to 'basketball crap' is really fairly irresponsible Sheedy. That said, Smyth said something along the lines that Sydney were playing 'Footy out there' last season, so it may be all fair...

Just simply implement the cross back rule into AFL. Put a line across the centre of the field and if you kick back past that or kick backwards in your defensive half, it is play on.

I think a limited amount of time in the back half before marks are void would be interesting.

Sheeds has lost it.

I thought this quote from Terry Wallace was pretty classic:

"It's all a bit of theatre ... I've got no problems at all with Kev. (But)
I wouldn't have thought we were playing basketball on the weekend. I would
have called it more of another sport ... We were trying to lure the
opposition, so fishing was the sport I would have chosen," Wallace joked.

It has to be no kicking backwards unless ur in the forward 50. It may give u a worse angle to goal, but then that forces the teams to play more corrodor fast football in the first place. Bring it in, no mark for backwards kick unless inside the forward 50.

If Richmond (or any football team) are really going to play "basketball crap", I may just watch more football ;)