Push in the back

Due to the lack of an offside rule, with the exception of when a free kick or mark is paid players can be challenged from any direction at any time not always with full awareness of their opponent's positioning, potentially disadvantaging those playing in front whole sole intention is gaining possession.

This arises because a bent-over player can be easily knocked over by incidental contact, forcing the umpire to make a judgement call regarding whether or not he considers the push to be sufficiently substantial to warrant penalty.

Furthermore, it is not uncommon to see a player "take a dive" when he feels contact from behind, and umpires will not pay a free kick if they believe this to be the case.

The rule was introduced after a 2006 season, in which there was an increasing tendency for forwards to play from behind in standing one-on-one marking contests, using their hands or bodies to nudge their opponents under the ball.

The AFL has stated that the rule would remain beyond 2007, and fans' angst decreased as the season progressed, and as players became used to working within the interpretation.

In these colonies rugby was increasing in popularity and its proponents argued that without the Push in the Back rule, their game was much safer to play than the Victorian code.

[12] Elsewhere in practice, however its use as a tactic was increasing and in the late 1870s umpires in Victoria (specifically of the Geelong Football Club) began to penalise it with free kicks despite the absence of an official rule.

[18] The VFA's reluctance to listen to the Queenslanders eventually helped created a rift which saw the formation of a local governing body for rugby, mass switching of codes by schools, clubs and players and the decline of the sport in the colony.

[19] In 1884 the QFA in response finally went against the VFA's advice and passed a push in the back rule,[20] however the mass exodus to rugby had already begun a month earlier.

[24][25] It wasn't until the early 1880s that the Victorian media began labelling pushing in marking contests as an unfair practice.

In 1886 two Tasmanian football deaths were directly attributed to the practice so the colony adopted the new rule and its intercolonial delegates pleaded for the Victorians to follow suit.

[30] At a meeting of the Australasian Football Council in 1890 a motion was passed banning pushing in the back in a marking contest which was agreed to by its member leagues including Victoria.

[31] After decades of controversy a rule against pushing for both marking and "running with the ball" was finally adopted in 1897 by the newly formed Victorian Football League.

In the 1900s, an incidental contact rule (i.e. jumping on an opponent's back in an effort to mark the ball in the air is not considered a push) was introduced first by the VFL in 1904 which reached widespread adoption by the Australasian Football Council in 1907.