And if you watch a match from the 90's you'll see every player who leads and takes a mark duck their head to avoid the inevitable fist from the bloke behind them who was just trying to "spoil".
And again, my memory may be playing tricks on me, but I recall a lot of games where one team would give the ball a roost, it would go to a contest, be marked by the opposition who would boot it long back where it came from, and this would repeat. Aerial ping pong I think it was called.
There have been some changes for the better.