Capping Rotations

[TheBloods]

Why is it ridiculous? How does this effect you watching the game. Personally I don't notice if the coach interchanges 80 or 180 times.

Comparing the game now to a few years ago, it is quite clear that it has had an effect on the style of the way the game is played. In addition, it has increased the impact on a team if it suffers an injury.

 

[Ando727]

You have no idea, last game he played he had to come off mid quarter and have an injection. That would constitute a rotation.

If he's having to come off mid quarter for injections, he's got bigger problems than using up a rotation. If he came off with the express purpose of bringing his blood sugar level down, he wouldn't be in a fit condition to return to the field in that quarter anyway. As a insulin dependent diabetic myself who has played sport, I know what's involved. You need to manage your control between quarters, not during them. If you are involved in a demanding sport and you are topping up on insulin in the middle of a quarter, you haven't prepared well enough. More specifically, take the injection if needed yes, but you won't be rotating back onto the field for a while.

What you describe would be an extremely rare event for a well controlled diabetic. So rare as to not figure in the debate about rotations at all.

 

[TheBloods]

As Rocket said this morning, he will increase the rotations amongst the three players on the bench. It is not going to work

But obviously he can't rotate two players or three players as much as he can four. Or - more accurately stated - he can't rotate as many players through the bench if there are less interchange players on it (which is pretty obvious given the injury issues giving rise to the discussion).

 

[Spurk]

So what happens if a player is injured and the interchanges are capped (without substitutes)? The AFL says teams currently have a 7% less likely chance of winning if they go a man down? How exactly will this change ... both sides will have the same amount of rotations ... yet one side can only cycle this through 3 players instead of 4, so their players will still get tired quicker and it will not really remove the disadvantage to the team with an injured player.

I think if they are going to cap interchanges, they still need to allow a permanent substitute and/or give a side XX amount of extra rotations per permanently injured player. The latter would maybe be too hard to implement, how do you work out what is a fair amount of extra rotations, and this would also depend on what stage of the game it happened and so forth.

What happens if you have used 80 rotations, the game is level, and with 2 minutes left one of your players gets knocked out? What do you do then? Play with 17 and have 3 fit players sitting on the bench? What a farce. Even if they allowed substitutes, you would likely have used your substitute by this point of the game. They need to say that any injured player coming off, who can't come back on, does not count towards the count of 80 ... but again this causes grey areas as how do you know someone is really injured.

The AFL really needs to think through all possible scenarios properly before proceeding with this. They can try all they want to narrow-mindedly attack certain "problems", but they just create cascading problems where one rule change results in something else they want to "fix", then they try to fix that with another stupide rule change, and before you know it the game has been bastardised beyond belief with rule change after rule change to change the effects of previous rule changes.

They either need to have a cap of 80 or a cap of 80 and 1 sub.

Without the cap, it's asking for trouble.

With rotations coaches currently have around a 5% advantage area to play with, which can be reduced by an injury to around 3%.

Coaches aren't stupid and will be required to level out at around 70 rotations with some in hand. Not an issue. The benchings will fall in line very quickly.

Capping will reduce the advantage/disadvantage area of rotations to a standard 2-3% for all clubs, regardless of injury.

At the moment it falls too quickly to 0% and rises to a 5% advantage as fast as you can say no injuries, depth of midfield, no ruckmen, sprinters, tacklers and even boring sides/gameplans/styles without any decent key forwards or bit part keys.

 

[Ant_]

If he's having to come off mid quarter for injections, he's got bigger problems than using up a rotation. If he came off with the express purpose of bringing his blood sugar level down, he wouldn't be in a fit condition to return to the field in that quarter anyway. As a insulin dependent diabetic myself who has played sport, I know what's involved. You need to manage your control between quarters, not during them. If you are involved in a demanding sport and you are topping up on insulin in the middle of a quarter, you haven't prepared well enough. More specifically, take the injection if needed yes, but you won't be rotating back onto the field for a while.

What you describe would be an extremely rare event for a well controlled diabetic. So rare as to not figure in the debate about rotations at all.

A rare as it is, it still happened that last game he played. Why should a medical condition be considered a rotation?

 

[Helfarch]

The only supposed 'pros' I see for capping the interchange are all flawed.

Run and carry style football will continue, Geelong rotate far less on average. It may increase because aggression and defensive pressure will decrease with fatigue.

Long kicks won't get any more effective. Defenders are hardly rotated as it is and forwards more only because HFs are injected into the midfield.

Losing a player to injury will be worse because you cannot compensate by increasing your rotations.

Fatigue increases the risk of injury, this is an indisputable fact. The AFL however in their special fantasy world want to use fatigue to decrease injury. Soft tissue injuries are far more prevelent and will increase with fatigue compared to impact injuries, impact injuries may even be exacerbated with tired and frustrated players making mistakes and lazy/reckless tackles.

 

[TheBloods]

I think if they are going to cap interchanges, they still need to allow a permanent substitute and/or give a side XX amount of extra rotations per permanently injured player. The latter would maybe be too hard to implement, how do you work out what is a fair amount of extra rotations, and this would also depend on what stage of the game it happened and so forth.

What happens if you have used 80 rotations, the game is level, and with 2 minutes left one of your players gets knocked out? What do you do then? Play with 17 and have 3 fit players sitting on the bench? What a farce. Even if they allowed substitutes, you would likely have used your substitute by this point of the game. They need to say that any injured player coming off, who can't come back on, does not count towards the count of 80 ... but again this causes grey areas as how do you know someone is really injured.

The AFL rarely seems to think through all the ramifications and scenarios under the rule suggestions.

With the idea of 2+2 it is designed to allow for injury, plus also some tactical play by the coach. To counter the case where a team has a serious injury late in the game you could easily allow one player to return from the reserve bench to replace a player who can then not play the following week (on the assumption that it must be a major injury).

 

[TheBloods]

The only supposed 'pros' I see for capping the interchange are all flawed.

Run and carry style football will continue, Geelong rotate far less on average. It may increase because aggression and defensive pressure will decrease with fatigue.

Long kicks won't get any more effective. Defenders are hardly rotated as it is and forwards more only because HFs are injected into the midfield.

Losing a player to injury will be worse because you cannot compensate by increasing your rotations.

Fatigue increases the risk of injury, this is an indisputable fact. The AFL however in their special fantasy world want to use fatigue to decrease injury. Soft tissue injuries are far more prevelent and will increase with fatigue compared to impact injuries, impact injuries may even be exacerbated with tired and frustrated players making mistakes and lazy/reckless tackles.

And there has been an argument that increased rotation increases the speed of the game, so players are more likely to get soft-tissue injuries by needing to sprint more often to keep up with guys fresh off the bench.

 

[Pie eyed]

Brad Scott is against capping rotations. My opinion has nothing to do with North and is about the game.

RadicalRoo is dumbass.

Accepted.

Yes.

 

[Helfarch]

And there has been an argument that increased rotation increases the speed of the game, so players are more likely to get soft-tissue injuries by needing to sprint more often to keep up with guys fresh off the bench.

Don't worry, I'm sure next year they'll propose a ban on sprinting in the first half What a stupid premise, what about a substitute brought in at half time? Not allowed to sprint because it's 'unfair'? What are you saying here? Players that are fast should be hobbled? They chasing players' problem is fatigue.

Hamstring injuries are in all running sports, eccentric hamstring excercises in the pre-season is one of the few proven methods to reduce hamstring injuries.

 

[Ant_]

If this is to prevent injuries why did the two teams who had the least injuries last year have the largest amount of interchanges?

 

[Helfarch]

If this is prevent injuries why did the two teams who the least injuries last year have the largest amount of interchanges?

A. Anderson was on radio this morning and actually said that their doctor had gone through the stats and it was the teams playing against high rotation sides that had more injuries....by .9%.

What a crock.

 

[Spurk]

If this is prevent injuries why did the two teams who the least injuries last year have the largest amount of interchanges?

Ant you are a smart man.

Picture grand final day, said team targets Cooney early.

Knees to ribs at a stoppage.

Dogs automatically disadvantaged not only from losing a key player but an unfair limit on freshness of the whole team.

Double that scenario and you have a dirty premier.

This will happen.

 

[Pie eyed]

If this is to prevent injuries why did the two teams who had the least injuries last year have the largest amount of interchanges?

From Optimax on our board.

Anderson was on Eddies radio show today and said that from their studies they discovered the more your opponent rotates the more likely ot is you'll get an injury to a player on your side. Seriously WTF

Eddie brought up our injuries have decreased since we have done it, and word out of Melbourne says the same. Anderson replied yes our studies suggest you get a small period of no injuries, Ed asked if 2 years is a small period no answer

 

[Ant_]

Ant you are a smart man.

Picture grand final day, said team targets Cooney early.

Knees to ribs at a stoppage.

Dogs automatically disadvantaged not only from losing a key player but an unfair limit on freshness of the whole team.

Double that scenario and you have a dirty premier.

This will happen.

Capping interchanges would not help in that situation. Losing key players has a far greater effect then the freshness of the players on the ground.

 

[MagooTheRoo]

Surely there must be a logical maximum number of interchanges a team can make before they become counter-productive. While a player is running to or from the bench he's usually not taking an effective field position. The aim is surely to have fresh players in an effective position on the field for the maximum amount of time.

It may be that some clubs have already overcooked the rotations in some games to their own disadvantage. Over time I suspect coaches will become more scientific and we'll see most teams rotating at a stable rate.

It's a bit like when 24 hour trading was introduced in Victoria. After while many shops realised that being open at 3am on a Wednesday might not give them the competitive advantage they originally thought and now they limit themselves despite not being required to close by law.

 

[Pie eyed]

Ant you are a smart man.

Picture grand final day, said team targets Cooney early.

Knees to ribs at a stoppage.

Dogs automatically disadvantaged not only from losing a key player but an unfair limit on freshness of the whole team.

Double that scenario and you have a dirty premier.

This will happen.

Surely you're not claiming this as a new tactic in GF'S. It's been happening since it was discovered that unconsciousness can effect a players performance, since before there was a bench and right through every change.

 

[Spurk]

Capping interchanges would not help in that situation. Losing key players has a far greater effect then the freshness of the players on the ground.

Grand final day will be most effective sniper wins.

Picture Hawthorn of 08 on a mission to injure in the first quarter.

Grand final will be won or lost because of injuries in the first quarter.

This is a huge issue.

Why wouldn't a coach want a retiring or fringe player to injure a player or 2?

 

[Spurk]

Surely you're not claiming this as a new tactic in GF'S. It's been happening since it was discovered that unconsciousness can effect a players performance, since before there was a bench and right through every change.

Surely you understand that losing a benchman thesedays has an effect on the whole side.

In the past they only lost a solidier, now they are disadvantaged as a team.

Huge difference.

You may not be laughing if the Pies were targeted early in a Grand Final and lost because of it.

How ironic would that be.

 

[Ant_]

Grand final day will be most effective sniper wins.

Picture Hawthorn of 08 on a mission to injure in the first quarter.

Grand final will be won or lost because of injuries in the first quarter.

This is a huge issue.

Why wouldn't a coach want a retiring or fringe player to injure a player or 2?

How is capping interchange going to effect that? Taking players out of GF day has been around forever.

You think Lynch wasn't aware of that when he was throwing hay makers at Wakelin?

 

[memberforever]

Surely there must be a logical maximum number of interchanges a team can make before they become counter-productive. While a player is running to or from the bench he's usually not taking an effective field position. The aim is surely to have fresh players in an effective position on the field for the maximum amount of time.

It may be that some clubs have already overcooked the rotations in some games to their own disadvantage. Over time I suspect coaches will become more scientific and we'll see most teams rotating at a stable rate.

It's a bit like when 24 hour trading was introduced in Victoria. After while many shops realised that being open at 3am on a Wednesday might not give them the competitive advantage they originally thought and now they limit themselves despite not being required to close by law.

Spot on, all part of the evolution of our game. No amount of legislation, over officiating will stop the game from evolving.

 

[Spurk]

How is capping interchange going to effect that? Taking players out of GF day has been around forever.

You think Lynch wasn't aware of that when he was throwing hay makers at Wakelin?

You would merely have to target a soft player these days, instead of a potential match winner.

Knock out even a non entity like Neon Leon, reduce the pies rotations.

Immediately lessen the sides chance of winning by 7%. The reward for hurting an opposition player has tripled. Sniper city come GF.

The targeting of soft or injury prone players could actually make the Grand final interesting.

Bring it on.

 

[memberforever]

You would merely have to target a soft player these days, instead of a potential match winner.

Knock out even a non entity like Neon Leon, reduce the pies rotations.

Immediately lessen the sides chance of winning by 7%. The reward for hurting an opposition player has tripled. Sniper city come GF.

The targeting of soft or injury prone players could actually make the Grand final interesting.

Bring it on.

That would increase the rotations.

 

[Pessimistic]

Grand final day will be most effective sniper wins.

Picture Hawthorn of 08 on a mission to injure in the first quarter.

Grand final will be won or lost because of injuries in the first quarter.

This is a huge issue.

Why wouldn't a coach want a retiring or fringe player to injure a player or 2?

"Thats Bollocks"

Did you see the kelly tackle on Young? if any tackle was designed to injure it was that one - grabbed his shoulders from the back and pulled down - not even a free !!!

And before we ger a sob story about Mitchell on Ablett take a look at the treatment Mitchell got from Ling for most of the game !

Anyway the 08 is the worst game to use as an example for interchanges because Dew stayed on because he couldnt be interchanged - hawks had 2 1/2 injures, cats had just one

 

[Spurk]

That would increase the rotations.

So 3 changes is greater than 4?

Yeah nah, i see where you're heading but you're wrong.