The AFL was in a State of the Game crisis. I'm not in Melb so I don't listen to Whatlely or watch him. For a media commentator to have their complaints listened to by the AFL was different. Unprecedented.
I believe it’s the opposite.
Rather than Gerard being upset, it is the AFL who set the agenda and get their favourite media arse lickers to start talking about it on a Monday (plant the seed) then the incestuous AFL propaganda unit (SEN / Fox Footy / channel 7 et al) ramp it up for the rest of the week until “the game is in trouble and needs drastic fixes”
And the rule changes started in 2018 when it looked like Richmond’s flag in 2017 wasn’t a flash in the pan like Footscray.
First the 6-6-6 was “trialled” late in 2018 by the bottom VFL teams and deemed a success - how good does footy look now? - to try to stop Richmond playing with extra players behind the ball up.
About the same time they moved the man on the mark at kick ins back - they wanted to make the goal square an extra 10-15 metres long by memory - to stop us from being so successful at locking the ball in our forward area with pressure creating multiple forward 50 entries.
They extended this rule the following year and somehow allowed the player kicking in to run 25 metres without bouncing to clear the ball well out of attack.
There could be one or two others, but the putrid icing on top of a rancid cake was the stand rule.
No other person has done more to damage the game than Shocking