IF WE are to learn one lesson from round 16 as a football competition, it's that the bounce is dead.

The final nail was punched into its coffin on Saturday afternoon when the siren rang a split second before Hawthorn's Ryan Burton frantically rushed a behind that would have given the Hawks a one-point victory.

Here's why.

It took just over 12 seconds from the final centre bounce for the ball to be punched over the line.

We know that because there were 12 seconds left on the clock when umpire Andrew Stephens perfectly executed the final bounce of the game to set play in motion.

Imagine, however, the outcry if Stephens had bounced the ball with 14 seconds remaining and it was so offline it had to be recalled, wasting a couple of valuable seconds, and the same passage of play had then played out after the ball was thrown up.

As soon as the siren rang under that hypothetical, Hawthorn would have realised how valuable those seconds were that elapsed while the recall occurred.

And then the rest of the football world would have joined in with the realisation that it had cost the Hawks the game.

Given that 103 bounces have been recalled this season, it is not an unlikely scenario.

Here's the chance for the AFL to get ahead of such drama and remove the bounce from the game at the end of the season.

The umpires don't want it retained because it's limiting the pool of prospective officials and, we are led to believe, is testing them physically.

Half the coaches don't want it because they like predictability.

The crowd isn't sure, because they don't like recalls much, but most fans are averse to changing a unique part of the game – we all know that seeing the ump go bang at the beginning of the Grand Final is part of the tradition.

But we don't notice when the umpires throw it up during the season, as happened a few times in the last quarter of the Hawthorn v Giants before Stephens' final, perfectly executed bounce.

So, after watching the dramatic finish to the Hawthorn v Greater Western Sydney game and imagining what might have happened to umpire Stephens if his bounce had been recalled, I've come around.

Those seconds are too valuable to just hand up in full view of everyone watching on television.

If the bounce is to be retained then the AFL should at least consider adding back those lost seconds, if it's feasible.

Thankfully, all that happened on Saturday in Launceston was we had a thriller and the umpires did a brilliant job.

We might not be so lucky again.