Enough tinkering: ScottBy Nick Bowen
afl.com.au
Tuesday, February 26, 2013Brad Scott fears that constant rule changes by the AFL will alter the essence of Australian footballAUSTRALIAN football could become unrecognisable in the near future if the AFL continues to tinker with the rules, North Melbourne coach Brad Scott says.
Scott expressed his concerns about football's future on Tuesday when asked about the introduction of a cap of 80 interchange rotations in this weekend's round two NAB Cup matches.
Speaking at the re-opening of North's re-surfaced Arden Street training ground, Scott said AFL coaches were adaptable by nature and would counter any affects the interchange cap had on their players.
"I'm not sure that we should be trying to tire players out to try and reduce congestion because you go back and look at the evolution of the game, through the early 2000s you had the flooding, 2010 we had the opposite with players pushing to the other end of the ground," Scott said.
"So the coaches evolve and alter their tactics based on what's presented to them. So if players are tired and we cap rotations and we fatigue players and we make it difficult for them to get around the ground we'll just adapt. We'll just change the game again.
"If our players are really tired and we're getting scored against and we're opening up and there's less congestion, well we're likely just to put 16 players behind the ball to stop us being scored against.
"If we make rule changes every time there's an evolution in the game we'll just end up chasing our tail.
"My great fear is the game becomes unrecognisable in the not-too-distant future."
The AFL's experimentation with an interchange cap follows the reduction of the bench from four players to three players and a substitute at the start of the 2011 season.
Despite this change, rotations hit an all-time high of 131 per team on average in 2012.
The AFL Commission is set to decide at the end of this season whether to introduce an interchange cap in the premiership season.
Scott said the NAB Cup was the appropriate time for the AFL to trial an interchange cap, but was concerned the pre-season competition's altered playing conditions meant it would not be accurately reflect how the rule would work in premiership games.
"The reality is we're playing shortened games. When you cap interchanges at 20 [and] the quarters go for about seven or eight minutes less than the regular season, and you find that most of the interchanges happen late in quarters, are we going to get an accurate set of data?" Scott asked.
"I doubt it, but I don't know what the alternative is."
In addition to the shorter quarters, the AFL has also permitted teams to play three interchange players and three substitutes for the next two rounds of the NAB Cup.
http://www.afl.com.au/news/2013-02-26/enough-tinkering-scott
