I see the AFL has confirmed that "The protected area around the mark will be set at 10 metres this season after being successful trialled during the first three weeks of the NAB Challenge".

This rule change was also supposedly going to incorporate a more restrictive interpretation of where the man on the mark could stand so that the player on the mark could no longer creep around and stop someone from playing on. Instead of being able to line their backs up with the middle of the goals, they were supposed to have to line themselves up parallel with the middle of the ground.

I saw several examples of the "creep around" on Friday night with no intervention from the umpires. Did anyone see a player on the mark stopped from (or penalised for) positioning themselves in the direct line of sight to the goals?

In the AFL article below it is also said that "the stricter adjudication of tackles and deliberate out of bounds had been a positive change". H'mm I'm still not convinced about the deliberate out of bounds interpretation. To me it seems to be more of a "you must keep the ball inside the boundary' rule.

Players get 10-metre protection zone as AFL locks down rules - AFL.com.au