You're talking my language here mate.
The game has to evolve, although I worry they are too quick with some decision. It seems most of the changes in recent years have been a balance protecting players safety and lifting the pace of the game.
They have capped rotation in the past but teams felt it lead to more injuries.
yeah but if you left it like that for a few years the smarter teams will realise if they slow their game down a bit they might be able to retain their better players. the teams that shoot their load so to speak will be left with nobody.
problem is it's a PR problem if there's too many injured players...
What did you think of the super sub. It seemes to counter the effects of an injured player. There was still an advantage for the uninjured team to bring in a fresh player for the last quarter but at least it was only for a quarter.
I didn't mind it. Seemed to allow coaches to be more cautious with players who might have been partially injured. And who knows maybe old mate Brent Harvey could still be around and be heading towards racking up 500 games
the super sub sucked.
You end up with a situation where clubs are just refreshing 1 player at 3/4 time, and then a last quarter injury means you're still down 1 man, with a fit player ready to go that can't come back on. It introduces too much in the way of grey areas.
And what if your ruck or key forward goes down? great, you're bringing in a 5'6 rover.
I like the way soccer does it. Since the beginning of time you've only been allowed 3 substitutions per match. If you use those up and you get another injury then tough luck, you play a man down. It's very rare to see all 3 subs used with more than 10-20 minutes left in the game.
I think if they introduce the limit, it needs to be quite low. Get the game focused around the players that are on the field. I would look at something like maybe 8 per quarter.
It isn't really an attempt to change the way the game is played in my mind, it's more trying to revert to the way the game used to be played. The bench was only used a handful of times every quarter up until the mid-late 2000s