Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge has floated his own idea to the AFL for the next period of the season where 33 games are set to be condensed into 19 days.
While some coaches, including reigning premiership coach Damien Hardwick, have asked the AFL to increase the interchange bench to six to help reduce the load on players over this period that could include four-day breaks, Beveridge has a less game-changing proposal.
Beveridge has called for the return of the substitute rule, with two additional players on the bench who are only available in case of major injury.
These two players can only be brought on to replace a player who has suffered an injury and to avoid the system being cheated, the players substituted out cannot play in the next game either.
Dwayne Russell went through the rule as Beveridge had explained it to him.
“The AFL with this 33 games in 19 days is now about to decide whether to bow to pressure from the most vocal coaches Damien Hardwick, Alastair Clarkson, Nathan Buckley and maybe a couple of others to extend the benches from four to six,” Russell told SEN’s Dwayne’s World.
“Should the AFL keep some war of attrition in our game in 2020 or extend the benches to 24?
“I spoke to one coach yesterday who I won’t name who said he didn’t care. He said he’s not one of those that worries about the rules or angles for rule changes. He doesn’t care one way or the other.
“I have been able to have a chat to Luke Beveridge about this. Steve Hocking is considering a middle of the road idea that was suggested to him by Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge – and Bevo has given me the okay to tell you what it is.
“His idea is four (players on the) interchange only, so we stick with the four interchange we’ve got now, but strict major injury only subs.
“So strictly major injury only subs that can come on if a major game-ending injury happens.
“The big rider being to stop the sub rule being rorted, the injured player can’t play the rest of the game and can’t play the following (game).
“If you’ve got a player with a corky and you want to save the player for next (game), you can’t sub him out. You can only interchange him because if you sub him out, he’s unavailable next (game).
“Same with concussion. You sub him out, he’s unavailable next (game). We stick with four interchange, but we have a strict two-player major-injury sub rule.”