AFL boss comments ahead of season
AFL CHIEF EXECUTIVE GILLON MCLACHLAN ADDRESSED SEVERAL TOPICS IN A PRE-SEASON MEDIA BRIEFING.
* On the AFL conducting game trials at clubs for concepts such as zones and 16 per team on the field:
"I believe it's an 18-a-side game.
"Don't be alarmed - it's just what I think mature organisations do.
"It's good information and feedback for the laws of the game (committee)."
* On Hawthorn trading out veterans Sam Mitchell and Jordan Lewis - the top two in last year's club best and fairest voting:
"They are very intelligent, mature people - I do feel that was a mutual decision.
"I have had a level of discussion, visibility with that, but ... to my understanding, it was mutually-agreed.
"It was pretty grown-up ... I think Hawthorn is a unique circumstance.
"Our supporters are incredibly grown up and there is a difference in this situation."
* On the standard of umpiring
"How you improve consistency is not obvious - by and large our umpires do a very good job and like everyone, there are mistakes.
"But we've shown to be progressive about how we can help them in this incredibly-complicated game.
"It's very hard to umpire and it's not clear to me - or to the people who are in charge of running it - that full-time umpires, as an example, would help.
"Watch the NFL - they have the advantage of spending three minutes in a video booth and the commentators still can't decide."
