The new bench mark
Greg Baum
The Age
August 5, 2006
ONE day not so long ago, Fremantle pre-planned 42 interchanges for one AFL game. When less forseeable factors prompted other movements to and from the bench, the total for the day came to 69.
This is not unusual. AFL statistics show that interchange movements across the league doubled between 2001 and 2005 and have risen steeply again this season.
In the debate about the way AFL football has evolved, the role of the interchange bench cannot be ignored. Originally, it was meant to give coaches flexibility in case of injury.
Then it became a device for creating mismatches. Now it is used to rest and refresh players so that they and their teams last four increasingly more hectic quarters.
Footballers were grudging at first in their acceptance, but most are now converts. A midfielder goes at his appointed time, even if he is running hot. Taggers go with their men, defenders when mismatched.
"Everyone comes off," said David Wheadon, assistant coach at Richmond and a long-time student of the game. "Even the stars come off now." Among last year's premiership-winning Swans, only one, Tadhg Kennelly, played every minute of every game.The standard criticisms of the modern game are that it is faster and more athletic, but less combative and rugged. Figures made available to the AFL's research committee this week affirm it.
"It shows that the game is more continuous, but is being played at a slower rate," said David Parkin, who sits on the committee. "There's no doubt that the players aren't running as far, but they're running faster and more often. Interchange keeps the intensity up — if you think that's a good thing."
The Western Bulldogs' innovative coach, Rodney Eade, doubts that more sophisticated use of the interchange bench has sped up the game. "I think we've made the game quicker by making better athletes," he said.
"We're still recruiting footballers, but because of sports science, and because they're full-time, we're making them into athletes. We're maximising their strength, and their fitness, and their speed.
"People say the new rules are making the game quicker. I don't think that's the case. I think it's going to get quicker anyway because of what we're doing off-field."
Eade said some of the criticism of football now was visceral and not sustainable. "People say we've got to play like it was in the '70s and '80s; that was great footy," he said.
"But like anything in history, you tend to remember only the better parts. I was supposed to have played in a great side in a great era. But I've looked back and some of the football was ordinary. I think the guys are tougher now than they've ever been. I think they're generally harder at it."
Eade also said hyper-coverage of football now skewed judgements and warped memories. In his playing days, only half of the league was competitive, and games between lesser teams in the mud at Moorabbin or the wind at the Western Oval were rarely screened, for good reason. "You can't walk backwards into the future," he said.
Nonetheless, the AFL is on a never-ending quest to refine the game, and proposals are afoot to modify the size and operation of the interchange bench. One, the hardy annual, is to expand the bench.
Theoretically, the sky is the limit. In American football, a team of attackers will substitute a team of defenders entirely when the ball turns over. In basketball, there are more substitutes than players on court.
Another mooted idea is a limitation on the number of interchanges a team a game, as in rugby league. Eade is apprehensive about that. "If they're going to do that, they've got to have a reasonable number," he said.
"Don't cut it down to nothing. You'd hate to have James Hird, or in my my case Brad Johnson, with a tight hamstring, and you've used all your interchanges, and he rips it off the bone. Where's the duty of care?"
Eade suggested instead of hobbles on bench movements that teams be allowed to name 24 players and use any 22 on the day. This would address the recurring problem of late changes.
He said other changes might have more salutary effect: to disallow marks from backward kicks in defence, for instance, or to reduce the time allowed to a player who has taken a mark from eight seconds to six.
Parkin said the rules committee would not necessarily hearken to coaches. "They have a vested interest. I put my hand up like mad every time they proposed more interchange (when I was a coach) because it made my job easier," he said. "I selfishly admit that. I think I have a more reasonable view of the game now as a non-coach."
Parkin said the league should and would be careful about change because experience had taught that there were always inadvertent side-effects.
Hawthorn's Sam Mitchell has learned to pace his game by coming off for five minutes every quarter. But when injuries to other players made it impossible for him to have his statutory rest last Friday, his game fell away dramatically.
"Everything we change, manipulate or modify ends up with another outcome which we haven't necessarily thought too much about," Parkin said.
For instance, it was unclear whether restrictions on the interchange bench would obviate the risk of injury by slowing down the game, or increase the chance of injury by tiring out players. Nor was it clear whether it would reduce the instance of flooding.
"As the game has evolved, so has the use of the interchange," he said.
"That's helped. It's been necessary in the proportions it has. Whether it has to go further, I doubt it. Whether we have to limit the number of interchanges per game, I would say yes. That would control the intensity of the game, which would help with injuries and the wearing out of players. But others would argue that the players will be worked just as hard, and will be given no rest. So you're going to make them train harder to get fitter because the job they're doing is going to be harder."
Wheadon thinks so. He said any effort to slow down the game by putting a ceiling on interchange movements would be counterproductive. "No matter what happens, the game will get quicker," he said. "The collective weight of training and preparation will mean the game will get quicker."
He likened it to the difference between C-, B- and A-grade tennis. "It's the same game; it just happens quicker," he said. "A few years ago, you might have been 10 metres free to kick the ball. Now it's eight metres. Soon it will be five.
"It's not because one person becomes better, it's because everyone trains to close everyone else down. So you have to produce the same skills in less time and space."
http://www.realfooty.theage.com.au/realfooty/articles/2006/08/04/1154198332091.html
