The AFL is strongly considering scrapping the medical sub for next season and extending the interchange bench, but the league claims it doesn’t want to “undo the good work” it’s done in the space.
AFL general counsel Andrew Dillon on Tuesday said the AFL Commission had discussed increasing the number of players on the bench from four to five, with a key talking point being whether the change would create an unfair advantage for one team should a player from the opposition pick up an injury early in a game.
Multiple outlets on Tuesday night reported the AFL was considering three options for next season: Expanding the interchange bench to five players, keeping the medi-sub or replacing it with a ‘tactical sub’.
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Keeping the medi-sub in its current form appears the least likely option. Tweaking the gameday set-up to a tactical sub or making it a five-player bench would not only allow clubs to be more tactical at selection, it’d ease the pressure placed on club doctors.
The AFL, at the outset of the medi-sub rule’s formulation, looked to introduce a mandatory 12-day lay-off for every player subbed off. When the rule was officially introduced, a player could be subbed off if it was “reasonably determined”, by a club medical officer, the player would be “medically unfit to participate in any match for at least the next 12 days”.
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However there were several examples — excluding concussion incidents — of players who were subbed out of matches but played for their team the next week. There was speculation some clubs were exploiting an injury loophole by subbing out a sore player as a precaution to introduce fresh legs late in matches.
Dillon said all three options had been explored, with the Herald Sun reporting the league had also canvassed the AFL Doctors’ Association as well as every club’s football operations manager.
“It got discussed at the Commission meeting last week and we’d gone out to the clubs during the finals and asked them about their view on medical sub versus just a tactical sub versus five on the bench,” Dillon told reporters.
“There’s been some really interesting feedback on that.
“When we’re weighing it up we’d be looking at if you went to five on the bench, what does happen if you do lose a player and how does that affect you versus a team that’s got four players on the bench versus five?
“So, we’ve just got to look at the data that deals with that and we want to make it fair. There was a reason why we bought in the medi-sub, so we don’t want to undo the good work that we did.”
Swans coach John Longmire this year said he would be happy to see the return of a “straight sub” — which was in place from 2011 to 2015 — while Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge said he was keen for a five-player bench to be introduced.
“I’m not going to circulate five players during the game. Four’s almost one too many, anyway, so you’re likely going to sit one down until you really need that player, but you could introduce that player for a quarter here and there and it creates a different angle,” Beveridge said.
“But all it does is it removes all the red tape and we don’t have to explain ourselves if you take a player out of the game and it’s just so simple.”
Melbourne champion Garry Lyon this week told SEN Breakfast it was clear the current sub format “doesn’t work”, adding the five-player bench was the best option going forward.
