General manager, football Chris Connolly gives his take on the interchange and substitute rule

THE INTERCHANGE rule was driven by the AFL out of a fear that the forces in the game were too high.

The AFL was keen to reduce forces and the severity of collision injuries.

Now, last year the average interchange number was 126.

What we found in round one was that it was 110.

Clubs have put a lot more time and effort into having efficient rotating formulas.

Some things to consider with the interchange are: it’s focused on maximum energy out on the field and allows muscles time to recover to reduce injury.

Clubs have got better at it.

The disadvantage from a football point-of-view in previous years was that if a team had an injury, you were at a significant disadvantage in terms of winning, because you were one player short.

And if you had two injuries, you had no chance of winning.

What we were finding was that injuries were going to have a big influence on the outcome of games.

For me personally, that is why we had to reshape the interchange rules.

What we saw in round one was that a lot of teams use different types of substitutes.

I think there will continue to be a lot of experimenting around that over a number of weeks.

This will continue until we work out the best method or types of players to use.

We found that a lot of clubs did have an injury, but weren’t significantly disadvantaged in terms of the opposition having an unfair advantage.

There was an extreme example at Brisbane, which had a number of injuries.

The interesting thing to consider from last weekend was that the teams that rotated the least lost.

Yet Melbourne and Sydney had the same rotations and drew.

Now we need a number of weeks before we draw any conclusions out of how the interchange evolved from round one.

It’ll be interesting moving forward, as we do know the AFL was eyeing off two substitutes - and not just one.

We’ve had a lot of criticism from people around the AFL industry, and I think it’s premature.

Let’s operate with this rule. We know why it’s in place and let’s see how we reshape it moving forward.

The team that can use the interchange most efficiently will have an advantage moving forward.

The reduction in the interchange - and with Collingwood being so good at it and so dominant last year - clubs have really got to become efficient.

We look forward to the tactics and strategies around it and the efficiencies linked in with the interchange.

But make no bones about it, it has a big place to play in the game - in terms of winning and losing.