AFL scrap the substitute rule

Shorten it, change some rules, enhance it and spread it but only if you’re interested in growing the game at a faster pace and having a fairer competition. Shortening it is just one of a range of changes that need to be made.

Shorten it, change some rules, enhance it and spread it but only if you're interested in growing the game at a faster pace and a fairer competition. Shortening it is just one of a range of changes that need to be made.

Who has an entire team of speed players anyway? It's all about the ratios. Of course skill will be affected, how can it not? Skills are harder to execute when fatigued, so the skills gap between a skilled player and an endurance player is reduced, if not eliminated, as the game goes on. Essentially it's very likely the biggest effect of the reduction in interchange will be a greater premium on endurance players and reduction in high level skills. Congestion will remain as a way of levelling the playing field.

Not necessarily. Players lacking endurance will just be interchanged more often, you just won't be able to have an entire team of speed players. Skill and speed have no obvious correlation so skill should not be affected.

Well you did say it was a "good move", then saying you would decrease the allowed interchanges further, thereby increasing the value of endurance players. There is every likelihood that an increased value of endurance would come at the expense of speed and skill.

aagh hate the post goal rotation.

Go back to 2 Interchange and let the buggers tough it out like the olden days. It's not like they are unfit. I hate it when blokes are rotated after a goal too. That is nuts.

Stupid rule brought in by Adrian Anderson with no evidence it would do what he claimed it was going to do - even up games if an injury strikes early. More than that it was an embarrassing look for the game, particularly when teams would make the sub-player stay on the ground after the game concluded to do running drills while his teammates went to the rooms to cool-down and shower. These teams spend all summer flogging players on the track so that they are fit enough to play AFL footy for four quarters, not to have one guy every week sit on his ass for 3 quarters watching his team play at ground level. At least some sanity has prevailed and this rule is gone along with a reduction in the interchange cap (120 was a farce). Players will need to become smarter about when/where to run as they can't do a 30sec effort and jog off to the bench for a rest and drink (eg. Dane Swan). The days of gut running midfielders like Crawford, Cousins etc will start separating the genuinely fit midfielders from the average ones who benefited from an overused interchange.

I didn't say it was better to have more endurance players, only that the endurance players will become just as valuable and even more so later in a game.

Why is having more endurance players better than having more speed athletes (and likely having a greater portion of the mix as skills as well)?

Good move. I would reduce interchange numbers to 50 so players with endurance become just as valuable as the sprinters and say goodbye to players coming off after kicking a goal.

Interchanges are way overrated as a factor in the congestion issue anyways.

Hawthorn already do the fake concussion thing either side of the half time break.

Shorten it and spoil it.

No. Let players play.

With the reduced interchanges, it'll be interesting to see if any coaches who are running low on interchanges around the end of a game try and get their players to feign an injury, concussion, etc in order to take advantage of a free interchange. Might be better to make it a blanket rule that you can only have 90 interchanges regardless of how/why someone has gone off (maybe make an exception that it can be a free interchange when someone is injured as a result of foul play by the opposition?). That way, coaches will always leave a few interchanges up their sleeve at the end, just incase someone goes down. Coaches always find loopholes to work around a rule, so it'd be best to try and make this rule as 'coach-proof'as possible.

I can't believe it took them this long to realise how bad the sub rule was. I always felt sorry for guys making their AFL debut who were forced to sit idly on the bench for 3 quarters until the coach decides to give them the last 20mins of game time, then sends them back down to reserve grade the next week due to them not getting enough fitness the week before. Though i'm sure that they'd love that they just played their first game of AFL, it'd definitely put a bit of a dampener on the whole experience. The same can be said of guys who get given the green vest for any finals match and the GF.

Shorten it for intensity and wider public appeal

About time!

Freo's pretty close to smack in the middle for average interchanges this year, being 8th on the list with an average of 108 per game (comp avg = 107.7). They are headed by Collingwood, Carlton, Port, Crows, Hawks, Saints and Bombres.