Handball (Australian rules football)
The Handball or handpass is a
Handball revolutionized the game in the 1980s, moving it from the classic kick-and-mark style of play (which runs the risk of the pass being contested and intercepted by opposing players) to a fast run-and-carry style that emphasizes on maintaining possession and rapid ball movements down the field, which has typified the game since. The most prolific handballers in the history of the Australian Football League: Lachie Neale, Greg Williams, Scott Pendlebury, Josh Kennedy and Adam Treloar have averaged more than 13 handballs a game.
Skill
Handball is the most frequently used alternative of moving the football among players to kicking. In order to be a legal method to dispose of the ball, the player holds the ball with one hand and punches the ball away with the clenched fist of the other hand. A player typically punches with his dominant hand, thus holding the ball with the left hand and punching with the right hand is considered a right-handed handball.
When a player receives a handpass from another player, play continues. This is unlike the kick, where if a player catches the ball on the full from a kick (a
History
The rule defines it similarly to the open hand tap/handpass in Gaelic football but differentiates the hand skills from other codes of football. Unlike Gaelic football, punching the oval ball was more frequently used as it was the most effective technique to move the heavier ball larger distances.
Although the rules allowed for the handball, for most Australian football leagues the handball was largely a secondary skill to the kick and used as a last resort when a player had no time to kick. Strategically, Australian football was viewed as a territorial sport, where the prime aim was not so much possession, but to cover as much distance through the air as possible. As the holding hand could not move, this was best achieved by means of kicking the ball as far as possible.
The principally used handpass was top-spin in nature. This was used with the belief that the ball could be contained more locally and executed more quickly off the hands when the ball was held in preparation for kicking, as smaller handpasses were originally used mainly when in trouble. The other thought was that, as in tennis, a top-spun ball was more easily directed, dipped faster and possessed more stability in the air.
One notable variant of the handpass which began to develop was known as the flick pass, in which a player used his open hand instead of his fist to propel the ball. The legality of the flick pass has varied throughout the history of the game: it began to gain prominence in the early 1920s, before the
The flick pass had the significant drawback that its action was close to that of a throw, and different umpires had different interpretations of what was legal. In 1938, motivated by a desire to eliminate this inconsistency, and to speed up the game further, the
The emergence of the handball as a more widely used skill for attacking took place in the 1960s and 1970s. Legendary coach
The modern handpass technique, known as the rocket handball, was pioneered by
With the wide adoption of the handball in the 1980s, midfielders such as
Although rules were uniform across the country, local interpretations and customs varied.
Since 2000, the number of handpasses used in AFL matches has grown substantially, double that of the 1970s. The focus of the modern game was to use chains of handballs to break through defensive zones, and to avoid kicking to contests.
Handball competitions
Handball competitions are often used to test the accuracy of handpasses. A handball competition typically uses a board or vertically hung material with a target consisting of multiple coloured concentric bands worth different points. The centre is usually cut out to let the ball through and is worth maximum points (typically ten).
Handball competitions often occur at local clubs,
References
- ^ "Revision errors – restoration of the flick pass". Daily Advertiser. Wagga Wagga, NSW. 28 April 1934. p. 7.
- ^ Forward (9 August 1933). "Football – laws altered vitally". The Age. Melbourne. p. 15.
- ^ Garry Raffaele (26 May 1965). "untitled". The Canberra Times. Canberra, ACT. p. 29. Retrieved 5 November 2015 – via National Library of Australia.
- ^ a b Devaney, John. "'Handball, Handball, Handball': 1970 Grand Final".
- ^ "Rules changes 1858–2013". Australian Football League. Archived from the original on 23 February 2014. Retrieved 31 October 2015.
- ^ "Throw pass is favoured". The Argus. Melbourne. 2 August 1938. p. 18.
- ^ "Association joins ANFC". The Argus, Supplement. Melbourne. 9 August 1949. p. 20.
- ^ Percy Taylor (16 February 1938). "Football experiments". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 24.
- ^ Guy Hand (30 April 2010). "I didn't popularise handball: Barassi". Sydney Morning Herald. Sydney, NSW. Retrieved 22 October 2020.
- ^ Healy, Gerard (17 April 2009). "The need for speed is killing handball". Archived from the original on 19 April 2009.