Essendon coach, and the AFL’s former general manager of football, Brad Scott said he would like to see the league’s substitute rule scrapped in favour of five players on the bench.
After his side’s win against GWS on Easter Sunday at Marvel Stadium, Scott said a rule change to naming 23 players as opposed to 22 and a later sub “just makes sense”.
Essendon coach Brad Scott during the match.Credit: AFL Photos
“It just makes sense but, having worked at the AFL, the lawyers would hate that because they’d have to rewrite the entire rule book because the rule book is written around 22 players,” said Scott.
“So, they have to change a lot of things, but at the end of the day, it’s doable to change it, and I think it’s logical because, you know, having to name Trent Cotchin as omitted … when he’s not omitted, just doesn’t feel right.”
Richmond’s former captain Cotchin was ‘managed’ for his side’s twilight game against the Western Bulldogs over the weekend, along with forward veteran Jack Riewoldt. But Cotchin was ultimately used as the Tigers’ sub – the same role occupied the following day by former Bombers skipper Dyson Heppell against the Giants.
Scott, who held the role of general manager football at the AFL before taking up the head coaching position at Essendon, said changing the medical sub to a tactical one was discussed during his time at the AFL.
“If I can tell you that we put out submissions, or requested submissions or club preferences, and my view, my strong view, is that the clubs would come back and say no, we prefer five on the bench, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case,” said Scott.
“[A] majority of clubs said they wanted four and sub, which surprised me, but this is the difficulty when you ask clubs, because they are going to look at it – quite rightly – through their personal club lens.
“Some teams feel like they’ve got a really good running team, they don’t want that diluted by having five on the bench.”
For the Sunday game, Heppell was a late out and named as the substitute, replaced by Andrew Phillips, in a move Scott said he sought clarification the club was allowed to make.
Dyson Heppell was the activated sub in the Bombers’ clash with GWS on Sunday.Credit: Getty Images
“It’s just where we thought we can get an advantage … I know there’s been some commentary throughout the week around having someone named out, so we actually did seek some productive clarification on that – that we could do what we did,” said Scott.
“So we declared that to the AFL that that was the way we were going to approach it.”
He added that they found themselves in a situation where Phillips didn’t play the week before and so the club didn’t have to name him as the sub earlier in the week.
“Whereas other teams, if you’re going to drop someone or make them a sub, you’ve got to name them as omitted, and we certainly didn’t want to do that with Heppell,” said Scott.
Scott admitted Heppell had been thrown around with positions so far this season but handled it well, with a team-first mentality, and was still an important player to the group.
“We felt Heppell was the right sub for us this week because we went with talls at both ends of the ground and that just gave us the flexibility that Dyson can play in multiple positions.”
Heppell came on in the second quarter against the Giants after Sam Weideman was subbed off following a nasty head clash with GWS’ Nick Haynes.
“He was really important today. He was really calm and kept the boys focused,” said Scott. “And I’m aware there’s been some viewpoints and criticism, but he’s very, very important to our group with where we are right here, right now.”
