Most of these changes—from the naked eye at least—look to tick the correct boxes and fix up some of the league's most controversial rules.
But reportedly, the fine-tuning isn't finished.
The Age’s Michael Gleeson reports the AFL has a "watch list" of potential changes that could be made for 2027.
MORE: AFL fine-tunes seven controversial rules in a bid to reduce 'dead time' for the 2026 season
Some of these include:
A free kick against if a player drops at the knees and is tackled.
No shot clock outside the 50-metre arc.
No warning for 6-6-6 breaches.
Prior opportunity to return for a ruckman who grabs the ball out of a ruck contest.
Whilst again, some of these rule adjustments seem needed, the return of prior opportunity for a ruckman who grabs the ball out of a ruck contest has blown Kane Cornes' mind.
“Prior opportunity for ruck men that take the ball out of the ruck. Well, hello — weren’t we here not that long ago? And in fact, we were, in 2018,” Cornes said on SEN Breakfast.
“Now, Sammy, you’d remember that this rule was previously in place, and it was scrapped at the end of 2018. So the league is bringing back a rule that they already had — not dissimilar to the centre-bounce ruck rule, or not nominating rucks,”
"This is just backflipping and flopping on rules that they’ve already changed, it's embarrassing.”