No sympathy on interchange rule

Where are the violins for the AFL coaches when you need them?

Make no mistake the clubs and coaches deserve not one bit of sympathy in their bleating over the AFL's changes to the rules governing the interchange.

Remember if the coaches, with the blessing of their clubs, had not abused the interchange in the first place then there would have been no need for the AFL to introduce its heavy-handed crackdown.

While criticising the AFL is a favourite sport for many - and indeed much of the criticism is often justified - this time the league has got it spot on.

The league's decision to enforce a crackdown on the bench only came about because Sydney had 19 players on the field during the crucial final minute of a drawn game against North Melbourne in round six.

And the player that eventually came off in Darren Jolly played a key role in the passage of play that enabled the Swans to get the match-tying behind - all while they had one extra player on the ground.

There are still many people who believe the Swans should have had the two points they earned for a draw in that match stripped from them - with the Kangaroos instead handed all four premiership points.

And remember the Swans are not the only offenders with Hawthorn and Port Adelaide also fined for having 19 men on the field temporarily during pre-season matches.

But can you imagine the outcry if teams were stripped of premiership points or had their entire score wiped - as was the case under the old rule if the opposition captain called for a head count and it was found a team had too many players on the field - in the modern-day, cut-throat AFL.

Instead the league took the sensible approach and ordered the clubs to log all their interchange moves as well as ensuring players were not allowed to take the field until the player they were replacing had left the field.

What is wrong with that?

But instead some of the coaches carried on this weekend as if their favourite toy had just been taken from them - bemoaning the fact that because of the paperwork now involved they often only had 17 men on the field.

Big deal - far better to only have 17 men on the field rather than 19 men!

Again it is worth pointing out if the coaches had not abused the interchange system in the first place the league's crackdown - which from next week will involve free-kicks and 50 metre penalties if teams breach the rules - would not have been necessary.

The interchange system was not introduced to enable clubs to make 100 interchange rotations per match and to take their players on and off the field every five minutes to keep them fresh.

Instead it was designed to ensure teams could retain flexibility in the advent of injured players.

The rise in interchange rotations is one of the number one causes of the high-speed, possession game now being played - which results in less and less marking contests and is not a patch on the long-kicking, pack marking, contested game of the late 1980's and 1990's.

In fact this column believes the AFL should even go further and not allow interchange rotations at all, even if it means increasing the size of the interchange