We’ll huff and we’ll puff

We wonder about the deliberations of the AFL’s Laws of the Game committee, comprising Messers Adrian Anderson, Kevin Bartlett, Luke Darcy, Andrew McKay, Leigh Matthews, Matthew Pavlich, Luke Power, Rowan Sawers and Michael Sexton.

 

Changing the composition of the bench for the 2011 season from four interchange players to three interchange and one once-only substitute will reduce congestion, increase fairness and, we assume, reduce injuries — or so the AFL would have us believe.

 

On ‘fairness’, teams losing a player early in a game will be less disadvantaged by not losing a fourth bench rotation player. Well, OK, but it’s a pretty marginal argument given the Saints’ second half comeback with at least one ‘cripple’ on the bench in 2010 GF #1.

 

Great play is made of the increase in average interchanges from 58 per game in 2007 to 117 in 2010. Does the committee seriously suggest that there’ll be an average of substantially less than 87 — that’s three-quarters of 117 — in 2011?

 

Will Collingwood only rotate Dane Swan once per quarter now that they’re one down on the bench versus 2010? Of course not.

 

Pretty clearly, midfielders, along with high forwards and their opponents, will continue to be high-rotation players with deep forwards and deep backs the likely candidates to spend more time on the ground.

 

This effective 25% reduction in available interchanges versus 2010 will also, according to Adrian Anderson, reduce defensive pressure and increase disposal efficiency.

 

These expectations fly squarely in the face of common sense, and history suggests coaching staffs will, by next Tuesday at the latest, have worked out how they can manipulate this change to their teams’ advantage.

 

Apparently there is also an injury trend which will be arrested. Quite what that trend is isn’t spelled out.

 

Perhaps Anderson and his committee could have done the game a greater service by mandating that the Gieschen gaggle use the 2010 special ‘Finals’ edition of the rule book from the first bounce of the 2011 pre-season comp?