Storm coach Craig Bellamy has warned the NRL of the perils of not extending the four-man interchange bench to five players next season.
The NRL competition committee on Wednesday recommended not introducing an 18th man, despite a spate of HIAs (head inury assessments) leaving sides short already this year.
Now Bellamy fears matches could be reduced to 13 players on 12 – or worse.
“I keep hearing whispers that they’re still trying to lower the interchange from eight (a game per side) to six,” Melbourne’s premiership-winning mentor said.
“(If) you get two or three HIAs a game and you’ve only got six interchanges and you lose those two or three, then we’re going to see games with uneven numbers on there.
“So if we are going to go to six, an 18th man is a real necessity … a couple of HIAs and they get ruled out of the game and you get a couple of injuries, you might be playing 13 on 12.
“I don’t think we really want to see that.”
Once upon a time, teams enjoyed unlimited interchanges.
“(Then) we’ve gone from 12 to 10 to eight for different reasons,” Bellamy said.
“One of the reasons they’re talking about going to six interchanges, they think that teams are a bit more fatigued, perhaps collisions aren’t as hard and head injuries aren’t going to be as common.
“I look at it a little bit differently.
“Most guys, when they get their head in the wrong positions in tackles and they hit a bump, it’s because they are fatigued.
“So we might have more HIAs if we go to six interchanges when we’ve got more fatigued players.”
The NRL is attempting a difficult balancing act over concussion rules.
Currently, when a player is taken off for a head injury assessment, it doesn’t count towards the side’s interchange limit, leaving the rule open to potential exploitation.
The league will continue to review interchange procedures before making a final decision.
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