Cap in hand

The AFL has announced a cap on interchange rotations of 120 for the 2014 and 2015 seasons, with changes at quarter and half-time breaks not counted toward the cap. The interchange bench will remain as three interchange and one substitute.

 

While we applaud the introduction of a cap, setting the level at 120 is like tying up a frisky 2-year-old colt with a strand of overcooked spaghetti. The AFL’s own statement reports the average for games in 2012 and early 2013 at “approximately 130 per game.” So the reduction is about eight interchanges per game. Wow!

 

There was so much angst about interchange numbers back in 2009 when these limits were first mooted through a trial in the preseason competition, although the number then was a hefty 50 fewer interchanges with a cap of 80 and a per quarter limit of 20.

 

After suffering two years of indecision, we were foisted with the nonsense substitute system (with three uncapped interchanges) which apparently was fairer. Well, fairer as long as you don’t lose a player early. While you don’t lose the potential for interchange rotations, you do lose the impact of a fresh player entering the ground late in the game and we’ve seen many occasions where that influence has been crucial to a victory.

 

It won’t happen now — we’ve got the substitutes for a considerable time it seems — but a simple capped interchange offers a far fairer result in the event of early injury.

 

Under a capped interchange, coaches must carefully judge their use of interchange early, husbanding resources for a crucial time later in the game. Losing a player may marginally reduce the length of time some players spend off the field, but the number of interchanges for both teams remains constant, virtually eliminating the disadvantage of losing a player*. The team that is profligate with its interchanges early, will suffer late, regardless of having a one-player advantage

 

The substitute system fixed a problem that didn’t exist and introduced a needless complexity to our game — another victory of Adrian Anderson over commonsense.

 

* Of course, losing a star playmaker will hurt more than losing a journeyman, but this is an argument about quantitative rather than qualitative analysis.