I had the misfortune of watching the third quarter of St Kilda’s loss to Carlton.

It was horrible. I turned it off.

The reason? Constantly 20 players around the ball. No one could move or get a decent possession.

The AFL has made so many rule changes to free up play, but won’t make the obvious change which could fix the problem.

At centre ball ups, all but four players from each team have to stand outside the centre square – a distance of about 25 metres from the Sherrin.

Make this rule apply for the rest of play. At any point, only four players are allowed in the centre square, with the rest needing to be either in the forward or defensive 50s.

For those who say keeping players 25 metres back from the ball up, or ball in, is too hard to police, it’s actually easy.

Every stoppage, the umpires take their time and call for the nominated ruckman. With four umpires, how hard would it be to make players, except the ruckman and midfielders, stay 25 metres off the contest, only being allowed to move into the zone after a ruckman has touched the ball?

With four umpires on the ground, it should be easy – easier, at any rate, than umpires determining if a player has run too far, or kicked the ball 15 metres.

Australian football used to be unique. Now it is often a game of rugby or basketball, and they refuse to make the rule change which could fix it.

There’s another rule in particular which is farcical – the player on the mark conceding a 50m penalty if he moves his foot.

The rule is being abused. The player with the ball often doesn’t even get in line with the mark, lingers, then starts his play wide of the mark and can do what he wants.

As soon as the attacking player comes off his line, it should be play on, and the defender shouldn’t have to wait for the umpires to call it.

The umpires won’t allow the defender to move, they wait seconds before calling play on – it’s actually slowing down the play, allowing the attacking player to stall.